GUERNSEY: The investigator who found the wreckage of a plane carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala in the Channel called on the authorities Tuesday to urgently recover the unidentified body inside.
“Time is of the essence when you’re talking about a body, so really it’s imperative that they proceed with the recovery of the plane and the body,” shipwreck hunter David Mearns told AFP.
Mearns was hired by Sala’s family to find the light aircraft after it disappeared near the British island of Guernsey on January 21, with the 28-year-old footballer and pilot David Ibbotson on board.
He found the wreckage on Sunday before the British government’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) took over the operation. They revealed on Monday that a body had been found at the site.
“Finding it is just the starting point. The AAIB has got to investigate it… The best outcome for the families would be to find the plane and recover both bodies,” Mearns said.
“As tragic as the loss is, it’s made much, much worse if the body is never recovered or they never get an answer to what happened.”
He is back at his home in England but confirmed that AAIB divers are currently on the site, trying to establish what to do next.
“You have to see whether you can lift the plane without disturbing the body and also making sure that you’re picking it all up,” he said.
He said the discovery of two seat cushions on the French coast last week revealed that the plane was broken.
“It’s in one area (on the seabed), it’s all one mass, but some bits may not be connected. So what you don’t want to do is to disturb the body in a way that you lose it,” he said.
