Pilot ‘had not completely lost control of plane’
THE pilot of the plane carrying Emiliano Sala’ had not completely lost control, an expert said.
Sala’s body was recovered and formally identified earlier this week but David Ibbotson, who was flying the light aircraft, has not been found.
The 28-year-old Cardiff City striker died when the Piper PA-46 Malibu plane crash landed in the English Channel near Guernsey. t is believed the plane came down due to bad weather as it flew from Nantes in France to Cardiff on January 21.
Former RAF instructor David Learmount, now consulting editor at aviation news website Flight Global, suggested Mr Ibbotson still had some control over the plane when it came down, reports the Mirror
He said the wreckage would have been spread out over a wide area if there had been a highspeed, uncontrolled dive. This suggested the pilot had “not absolutely, completely lost control”, he said.
He told The Times: “Nobody dives an aircraft into the sea knowing they are diving the aircraft into the sea. You pull the nose up.
“It didn’t enter the sea at high speed with its nose down.”
A fundraising page has been set up asking for donations to restart a search for the pilotl.
A Go Fund Me page has so far raised more than £13,000. A message on the site reads: “Please help bring David Ibbotson home and help give him the send off he deserves.
“As a family we are relying on the kindness of the good-hearted people to help us raise the much needed funds to help us find our beloved Dad, Husband and Son.
“As a family we are trying to come to terms with the tragedy and the loss of two incredible men.
To be told the search has now been called off for the foreseeable future has only made this tragic time more difficult.
“We can not bare the thought of him being alone, we need him home so that we are able to lay him to rest.”
Sala’s body was recovered in a privately-funded search which had been launched after the initial search was called off three days after the men and their plane, which had been travelling from Nantes in France to Cardiff, went missing.
Although Mr Ibbotson, 59, of Crowle, Lincolnshire, has not been located, poor weather conditions meant a “difficult decision was taken to bring the overall operation to a close”, a spokesman for the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said on Wednesday.
The aircraft remains underwater off the coast of Guernsey in the English Channel.