Premier League footballer Emiliano Sala was on
a light aircraft which went missing over the
Channel Islands.
The £15m Argentine striker, 28, was one of two
people on board the Piper Malibu which lost
contact off Alderney in the Channel Islands on
Monday night.
Cardiff City, which signed Sala from French club
Nantes in a record deal on Saturday, said it was
“very shocked”.
Guernsey Police said there was “no trace” of the
Cardiff-bound flight and his family said they
felt “desperate”.
Sala’s father, Horacio, told Argentine TV channel
C5N, he heard the news from a friend.
Meanwhile, John Fitzgerald, chief officer of the
Channel Islands Air Search, said the probability
of finding anyone alive from the missing aircraft
was “reducing very rapidly”.
The plane left Nantes in north west France at
19:15 and had been flying at 5,000ft when it
contacted Jersey air traffic control requesting
descent, Guernsey Police said.
The plane lost contact while at 2,300ft and
disappeared off radar near the Casquets
lighthouse, infamous among mariners as the site
of many shipwrecks, eight miles (13km) north-
west of Alderney.
“I didn’t know anything. I
couldn’t believe it,” he said.
“I’m desperate. I hope
everything goes well.”
“I think with the sea
temperatures and the sea
conditions the chances of
finding anybody alive are
reducing all the time,” he said.
“The sea temperatures are
very, very cold and just sap the
core temperature of anybody
in the water very, very
quickly.”
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