Undersea search for missing Sala plane starts
AN undersea search for the plane that was carrying missing Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala is due to begin this morning.
Marine scientist David Mearns, who is overseeing the mission on behalf of the Sala family, said crews will look for a ‘debris field’ using sonar and remote-controlled vehicles, operating 24 hours a day north of Guernsey.
The Piper Malibu aircraft flying Recoveries, said relatives of Sala and pilot David Ibbotson, 59, were ‘devastated’, adding: ‘We are trying to provide an answer to them’.
Mr Mearns, who will be working alongside the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, said his team was not expecting to find a whole plane, but that the search will continue until the wreckage is found.
The new search is being financed by a GoFundMe page which has raised more than £320,000.
Cardiff had paid Nantes £15 million for the Argentinian only two days before the tragedy.
We can reveal the Welsh club has privately expressed concerns about the way their record signing was being flown across the Channel. Sala, 28, from Nantes to Cardiff disappeared over the English Channel on January 21.
An official search was called off three days later when the chances of survival were deemed ‘extremely remote’.
Mr Mearns, director of Blue Water
A pawn in football’s transfer trail, Sport – Pages 108-109