Less than a minute after take-off from King Power Stadium, the private helicopter of Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha crashed onto a car park outside the venue. According to independent reporting, the billionaire was on board and died on site.

Leicester City waited until late evening to confirm the dramatic news, however several media outlets have already independently assessed that Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was on board of his private helicopter when it crashed last night. Most notably, the BBC confirmed the sad news with a source close to the family.

The Thai billionaire was killed along with one of his children and three other people when the machine crashed onto a parking site just outside the perimeter of King Power Stadium. It took off at 21:36 CET (20.36 local time), over an hour after the West Ham game, and hit the ground after less than one minute.

As was customary, the billionaire owner entered the helicopter at the centre of the field. Just after the machine cleared King Power Stadium at over 25 meters and took direction to London, it went down. There are conflicting witness statements suggesting that it may have been on fire already during flight (or not) and that its engine may have shut down in air.

Once the helicopter hit the ground, it turned into a massive fireball and despite quick response from emergency services (first teams arrived 4 minutes later) all of it was consumed by the flames. There are no reports of survivors as of now.