The plane carrying footballer Emiliano Sala and his pilot has been found following a sonar search – with both occupants missing and presumed dead.
The specialist sea bed search for the missing plane began off the coast of Guernsey today and located the wreckage this morning on the seabed of the English Channel.
Families of both men have been informed of the discovery.
Both the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) Geo Ocean III vessel and a private boat, which includes a side-scan sonar, were used to try and find the aircraft.
It was located after radar showed that the privately funded vessel looking for the wreckage started returning to Guernsey unexpectedly while the other AAIB boat stayed at the scene.
Sky News reported that the vessel that made the discovery was lead by marine scientist David Mearns who confirmed the identity and location of the plane.
He confirmed that it was in the early stages of this morning’s search, around 9 am, that the discovery was made.
Emiliano Sala and pilot David Ibbotson disappeared when their plane vanished as it passed near Alderney on 21 January during a flight from Nantes to Cardiff.
The AAIB said its search was expected to last three days, while the private search will continue ‘until the plane is located’, reported the BBC.
A four mile square area, based on the flight path before the plane lost contact, will be covered which is about 24 nautical miles north of Guernsey.
The official search after the plane’s disappearance was called off after three days as officials didn’t believe there was much chance of anyone having survived.
An online petition was then started which raised more than £300,000 to put on a privately-funded search using a specialist survey vessel.
David Mearns, who claims to have found 24 major shipwrecks, will lead the group during the search.
He said that the boat, called Morven, was brought from Southampton to Guernsey six hours earlier than scheduled to take advantage of a break in the weather.
Mr Mearns said both vessels would divide the search area looking for ‘wreckage’ and a ‘debris field’ in a depth of 60-120m (196-390ft).
On Wednesday two seat cushions, believed to be from the single-engine Piper Malibu, were found on the Normandy coast.
Members of Mr Sala’s family and friends arrived in Guernsey last Saturday and several members of the group were later taken to the small island of Burhou.
