Sala killed by head injuries as plane hit sea

STILL LOST Mr Ibbotson EMILIANO Sala was killed by the impact of the crash, as the plane he was in plunged into the sea, a postmortem revealed yesterday.

The 28-year-old striker did not drown when the Piper Malibu crashed 21 miles off the coast of Guernsey on January 21.

Home Office Forensic Patholologist Basil Purdue confirmed the cause of death of the Argentinian player, who had just signed to Cardiff City, as “head and trunk injuries”.

The news comes as the family of the pilot, David Ibbotson, vowed to try and find his body. A GoFundMe page has raised £150,000 of the £300,000 needed to restart searches for the 60-year-old after footballers Gary Lineker and French star Kylian Mbappe added to the fund.

David’s wife, Nora, said: “We’re still holding on a little bit. Obviously we do know he’s gone but we want him back.

“We can’t leave him out there on his own. This is why we’ve done the appeal.”

The initial search for Mr Ibbotson and Mr Sala was called off on January 24 but fans and football players raised enough money for a private search by expert wreck hunter, David Mearns. He found the missing plane 67 metres under water with Mr Sala inside.

But there was no sign of Mr Ibbotson, from Lincolnshire. The plane is still under the sea.

His daughter Danielle said she wanted a search team “just to go down and have a last look, a proper look” so that “our family unit can be back, so we can go and visit him, just to know that he’s there”.

A pre-inquest review is set for November 6 once air crash investigations have finished.