Admits he model
cious” after two hours and five minutes.
“It didn’t look like anything else. We were seeing lots of derelict fish traps and boulders, but this was big.”
On pilot Mr Ibbotson – who remains missing – the director of Blue Water Recoveries said: “We always talked about him and Emiliano in the same breath, mindful that we were coming up with answers for two families that have been devastated, not one.
“Losing loved ones at sea without a body is a double tragedy. People know in their logical mind that they’ve gone, but there’s always this hope that they’re going to walk through the door one day.”
Since finding the plane, Mearns hasn’t seen the Sala family. Romina and her mother Mercedes both travelled to Guernsey in the days before the underwater search began.
Mr Mearns added: “We’re in touch every day; I’ve offered to fly to them and sit down and tell them certain things.”
Mearns can’t speculate publicly about what went wrong but added: “I wouldn’t go in a Piper Malibu.”