Argentina’s president has urged Prime Minister Theresa May and French president Emmanuel Macron to resume the search for missing football star Emiliano Sala who vanished over the English Channel.
Sala, 28, was being flown from Nantes to Cardiff by pilot David Ibbotson when the aircraft vanished from radar screens near the Channel Islands on Monday night.
A major search was called off on Thursday after rescuers said there was no longer any hope of finding survivors.
Argentine president Mauricio Macri, pictured, has urged British and French authorities to resume their search for missing footballer Emiliano Sala who has been missing since Monday
Emiliano Sala (pictured on board a plane late last year) sent a WhatsApp recording to his loved-ones on board the small plane just before it vanished over the Channel
This is the plane that Sala and the pilot were in when in vanished over the sea – it appears to be registered to a company in Norfolk
Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri has ordered his foreign minister to issue a formal request to British and French authorities to resume the search.
The Piper PA-46 was flying at around 5,000 feet when Mr Ibbotson requested permission to reduce altitude shortly before it vanished from radar screens.
In an official statement, Argentine authorities said: ‘President Mauricio Macri instructed foreign minister Jorge Faurie to make a formal request to the governments of Great Britain and France to ask them to maintain the search efforts.’
Mr Faurie is expected to make the request to both nations’ embassies.
Sala’s sister Romina Sala has also urged rescuers to resume the search, as have Argentinian football stars Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona and Sergio Aguero.
The Sala family is also planning to organise a private search with hired divers, according to Argentinian media outlet Ole.
Donations from footballers including Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan helped a GoFundMe page raising money for the search to rapidly surpass £60,000.
The aircraft left Nantes at 19.15 on Monday headed for Cardiff and was flying at 5,000 feet before it fell off the radar at 2,300ft during a descent cleared with Jersey air traffic controllers
David Ibbotson, 60, (pictured) has been named as the pilot at the controls of the privately-owned Piper Malibu aircraft carrying star footballer Sala
Emiliano Sala´s sister Romina has urged rescuers to resume their search
Guernsey’s harbour master Captain David Barker said the decision to stop actively searching had been a ‘difficult’ one, but the chances of survival after such a long period are ‘extremely remote’.
Mr Barker acknowledged the footballer’s family are ‘not content’ with the decision but said he is ‘absolutely confident’ no more could have been done.
Romina Sala, joined by her partner Juan Miaz and cousin Maria Sottini, viewed tributes outside Cardiff’s stadium on Friday.
Club chief executive Ken Choo said Sala’s mother and brother will soon join other family members in South Wales.
Mr Choo said the mood at the club is ‘sombre’ and ‘flat’, but it is ‘fully supporting’ the Sala family’s wishes to have information on the incident.
Flowers and tributes have been left outside Cardiff City´s ground and fans hope the footballer can be found
More than 60,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the search for the missing aircraft continues.
Mr Choo said the club has also informed authorities it wants the search restarted.
He reiterated the club had not organised Sala’s travel arrangements as it did not have ‘jurisdiction’ over the new signing at the time of the flight.
He described Sala as a ‘humble man’ and a ‘hero’ who was ‘really looking forward… to joining Cardiff City’.
It could take six months to a year for investigators to collate information on what happened to the plane, Mr Choo claimed.
His comments came after it emerged accident investigators will examine whether the pilot had the correct licence.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) opened a probe after the light aircraft disappeared from radar on Monday night.
Just hours before the flight, Mr Ibbotson wrote on Facebook that he was feeling ‘a bit rusty’ with regards to the instrument landing system
‘We are looking at all operational aspects of the flight, including licensing,’ an AAIB spokesman said.
Mr Ibbotson, 59, of Crowle, Lincolnshire, held a private pilot’s licence and passed a medical exam as recently as November, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
The Civil Aviation Authority said the aircraft was registered in the US, so fell under American regulations.
US law states private pilots cannot make a profit by carrying passengers.
The flight left Nantes in France for Cardiff at 7.15pm on Monday, and after requesting to descend, lost contact with Jersey air traffic control over the English Channel.
Cardiff City had signed Sala for a club record £15 million to bolster their attack and he was due to start training on Tuesday.
Rescue teams scanned around 1,700 square miles and examined mobile phone data and satellite imagery but found no trace of the aircraft.
Three planes and five helicopters racked up 80 hours’ combined flying time looking for the plane, working alongside two lifeboats and other passing ships.