The wreckage of the plane carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala was surprisingly intact when it was found and it is possible that his body, and that of the missing pilot, are among the debris, according to the shipwreck specialist who made the discovery.
David Mearns, the captain of the search boat hired by Sala’s Argentinian family, confirmed he found the wreckage in the English Channel north of Guernsey using sonar equipment on Sunday morning, just hours after the search began.
He said the family were “desperately” hoping for the plane to be recovered, a move Mearns said was being considered by the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
Sala’s father has spoken of his anguish at the discovery. “I cannot believe it. This is a dream. A bad dream. I am desperate,” Horacio Sala told the local broadcaster Crónica TV.
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Mearns, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, said: “The biggest surprise to us was that most of the plane is there. We were expecting to find a debris field. It is broken but most of it is there.”
Wreckage of missing plane carrying Cardiff City’s Emiliano Sala found, says search leader – video
He said a remote-controlled submarine deployed by the AAIB visually identified the wreckage, including the plane’s registration number.
“We located the wreckage of the plane on the sea bed at a depth of about 63 metres very shortly after we started searching,” Mearns said. “After that we called in the larger vessel, the GEO Ocean III – that’s the one that’s been contracted by the AAIB. They dove with their remotely operated vehicle, a submersible with cameras and lights and confirmed that it was the plane. They saw the registration number.”
He added that the Geo Ocean III had been contracted for only two more days and it was unlikely to be able to recover the plane in that time. “That is probably what they are evaluating”, Mearns said. “If they can handle the conditions … then hopefully they will get some more information about how they would attempt that recovery.”
Asked if the bodies of Sala and his pilot David Ibbotson were onboard, Mearns said: “That’s a possibility and they’ll be planning for that. There’s a number of things the AAIB have to consider, but their main role is to conduct their investigation on what caused this crash.”