wreckage found in the Channel

The wreckage of the plane that vanished with the footballer Emiliano Sala on board has been found within hours of a search starting in the sea off the Channel Islands.

A search boat hired privately by Sala’s Argentinian family – thanks partly to a crowdfunding appeal – located the wreckage on Sunday morning.

The crew passed the details of the location on to government investigators, who used a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to examine the spot.

There was no immediate official confirmation of what was found but the shipwreck specialist leading the private investigation, David Mearns, said the plane had been discovered.

He said it had been located by the privately hired vessel FPV Morven, which had passed the information on to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). Mearns said the AAIB had moved its vessel, the Geo Ocean III, to the spot and visually identified the wreckage with an ROV.

He said the family of Cardiff City striker Sala and the pilot, David Ibbotson, had been informed and the AAIB would be making a statement on Monday. It is believed it will be up to the AAIB to recover the vessel.

No information about whether any bodies were in the plane was given. Two seat covers from the aircraft washed up last week on the coast of France.

Mearns tweeted: “Wreckage of the plane carrying Emiliano Sala and piloted by David Ibbotson was located early this morning by the FPV MORVEN. As agreed with the AAIB they moved the GEO OCEAN III over the position we provided them to visually identify the plane by ROV.”

In a second tweet he said: “The families of Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson have been notified by Police. The AAIB will be making a statement tomorrow. Tonight our sole thoughts are with the families and friends of Emiliano and David.”

Very sad tragedy for such a young man in his prime who was looking forward to playing for Cardiff.

Very sad for such a young man and his family.  Is there a back story to this?

Note that I only have press reports to go on and I have no wish to conspiracy theorise. But Official search fails/called off.  Privately family hired vessel finds wreckage within a couple of days. Is this unusual or is it just the "application of money" that solves the problem.

i wasn't going to mention 'money' blackbarn but yes, it crossed my mind

the search only started at midday today, i believe?

Original search was to see if they could find survivors etc surely, this was to find a wreck using specialist equpiment.

but they did try to recover wreckage for a few days, JC

Just Checking - I agree and I had considered that priorities would obviously be different. But, evidence of wreckage is obviously material to finding any survivors. I guess that until we know the nature of the search by Morven (Seabed??) no one can be sure.  I just thought is was slighly odd, and that view has been reinforced if as Bap says the search on commenced at midday today.

only "commenced" at midday today

i'm getting a tad confused my self now and wonder whether they gave a spoof time for search start. I've just read that the underwater search started this morning (no specific time given) & underneat that repoet it says wreckage was found earlier this morning? Yet the first press release was about 2 hours ago

The submarine search started early Sunday morning . There is at least one body inside the wreck.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch confirmed the sighting on Monday.

Rescue teams are now developing a recovery plan for the plane, which is 67m (207ft) below water.

The man who found it said it was "imperative" it was raised from the seabed soon

Mr Mearns added: "(The AAIB) will be able to rule things out or rule things in, that's the normal investigative process for any crash, so I think it's imperative that the plane is recovered, and now even more so now we know someone is down there."

The recovery operation would need to take place in "slack water" - the point at which the tide is turning, he added.

It would be conducted by a Ministry of Defence salvage marine operations vessel and Mr Mearns said one equipped for working in the North Sea with a dive support vessel would be able to lift the plane "within a matter of days"

Not so sure it will be that simple unfortunately ,lot of competeting forces at work imo ,not sure who’s waters the plane and bodies are in and we have potentially ,UK ,French ,Argentinian and American law in play ,can see conflicts emerging .Some may want the plane and bodies left where they are ,sometimes it’s the norm anyway,gunna be s big blame game regardless of cause but would be interested to know why the flight allegedly struggled  to take off ,reported that it took 3/4 attempts ,seems odd and hope it was not overloaded as looks like player was doing a house move .

You have to ask if it's worth it. Two dead in a car crash it would be forgotten in pretty short time.

I cant see either family just leaving the body there now they know where it is.
They'll never get past that, everytime they wake they'll think of their body at the bottom of the sea.

indeed, i certainly would want the body back

Now the world knows where it is too.
Knowing humans somebody would either dive down or sent one of those cameras to film it

There is no way in this world they get left down there

When you think about it its not that deep really
Indoor sprint tracks are about as long as that water is deep

it can be a lot deeper, but as i'm no marine expert i have no idea whythis was shallower than normal?

The channel aint really that deep, it was a land crossing at some not too distant past

just did a quick search, 174 metres at it's deepest point

yeah I just had a look too, and coincidentally that valley is very close to where the plane is
rest of the channel averages the depth the plane is at

after a few days the decomposition will be well under way and after a week or two they say the job will be complete ,just bones and they will be gone after months have past ,bones completely gone in under a year .

Already begun the salvage this afternoon its just been reported

the sooner the better for all involved

I think even had they people involved been paupers somebody would have funded a salvage after it became news.
The fact this guy played for his country and was valued at around 13m suggests his estate will be worth plenty enough to pay for such a salvage job.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch confirmed that the Geo Ocean III, an 80m state of the art oceanographic ship, is currently in place above the crash site and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is attempting to secure the body, before bringing it to the surface.

However, strong tides are hampering the primary stages of the recovery and the AAIB said: "we can only use the remotely operated vehicle for limited periods each day and this will mean that progress is slow.”


The recovery is being run by the MoD’s Salvage and Marine Operations team and there are AAIB inspectors onboard to oversee the work they do. At this stage, it is not known if the body is that of the pilot or the footballer.

is it just one body they can see; or just one body full stop? It's not been made clear that i can see

Just one body in aircraft

thanks tictacman