Two weeks after the crash of Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala over the English Channel, the British authorities are preparing for the location of the aircraft wreck on a salvage. In the coming days, an „underwater operation“ to the wreck at the bottom of the Channel launched, said a spokesman for the Authority for the investigation of aviation accidents (AAIB) today.
Underwater shot shows a wreckage of the crashed aircraft
Whether the found wreck can actually be lifted, the spokesman did not want to confirm. The private salvage entrepreneur David Mearns, who had located the wreck on behalf of Sala’s family on Sunday, warned in no hurry.
„As tragic as such a loss is: it gets even worse if the mortal remains are never salvaged,“ Mearns pointed out. Therefore, it is „absolutely necessary to start now with the salvage of the aircraft and the mortal remains“.
Machine near Guernsey vanished from radar
Mearns had located the plane. The AAIB then announced yesterday that aboard the wreck was one of the two inmates. Whether it is Sala or the British pilot, was not clear at first. The wreck lies at a depth of almost 70 meters.
The single-engine propeller aircraft with the 28-year-old footballer on board had disappeared from the radar about 20 kilometers north of the Channel Island Guernsey two weeks ago. Sala traveled from Nantes to his new Club Cardiff City in Wales following his transfer of 17 million euros. After picking up his things at the training center of the French first division on 21 January, he flew with the propeller machine type Piper PA-46 Malibu in the direction of the Welsh port city.
Shortly before his disappearance Sala had expressed, according to Argentine media reports in a WhatsApp message to friends worried about the condition of the machine. „I’m so scared,“ he said in the voice message. The machine seems to fall apart. The 59-year-old pilot, according to media reports, was not approved for commercial flights with passengers
