Body to be brought up from the sea bed

Wednesday 06 February 2019

The Air Accident Investigation Branch has confirmed it is going to retrieve the body which has been found inside the wreckage of the plane carrying Emiliano Sala and Dave Ibbotson.

Both the wreckage and what appears so far to be just one body were found on Sunday, by a privately funded search, which had been working in co-operation with the AAIB.

Pictured: Dave Ibbotson and Emiliano Sala. 

The plane had disappeared as it flew over the Channel on Monday 21 January. 

When the initial search and rescue mission, co-ordinated by Guernsey Coastguard, with the RNLI and Channel Islands Air Search, was called off after four days, a separate attempt to find the wreckage was launched by the AAIB and oceanographer David Mearns. They had by then managed to narrow down their search areas to just 2sq nautical miles.

Led by Mr Mearns team onboard a chartered boat with sonar equipment, the missing Piper Malibu was found just a few hours into that search, around 65m down, on the sea bed. The equipment on board his vessel and the AAIB chartered boat meant they could see the registration number on the side of the plane, but also sadly at least one body inside it.

Pictured: The plane carrying Emiliano Sala and Dave Ibbotson was found west of Alderney and north of Guernsey. The blue dot to the top left is the AAIB search vessel. 

The AAIB has taken over responsibility for the investigation going forward so it can work out what happened to the light aircraft to cause it to crash. 

An Air Accidents Investigation Branch spokesperson said:

“We are attempting to recover the body. If we are successful, we will consider the feasibility of recovering the aircraft wreckage.

“Strong tidal conditions mean we can only use the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for limited periods each day and this will mean that progress is slow. Regardless of the results, we will not be making a further statement until the families have been informed."