Family’s cash plea to hunt for Sala pilot
A fundraising page has been set up asking for donations to restart a search for the pilot of the plane carrying footballer Emiliano Sala, which crashed into the Channel.
Sala’s body was recovered and formally identified last week but David Ibbotson, 59, who was flying the light aircraft, has not been found.
A GoFundMe page has so far raised more than £46,000 to find the dad from Crowle, Lincolnshire.
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 goodhearted 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 bear 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.
It had been launched after the initial hunt was called off three days after the men and their plane, which had been travelling from Nantes in France to Cardiff, went missing.