What caused the disappearance of Emiliano Sala's plane?

On the night of January 22 to 23, it began to announce that a plane carrying Cardiff City striker, Emiliano Sala, had disappeared over the English Channel.

The Argentinian was traveling from Nantes, where he had bid farewell to his former teammates, in South Wales, where he had just agreed to settle for a record $ 15 million pounds sterling ($ 19 million).

He was on a private plane, a single-engine Piper PA-46, piloted by David Ibbotson, who allegedly used a loophole in the law to allow him to take paid pbadengers for "reasonable charges".

The flight left France at 1915 and was flying at 5000 feet when the pilot asked Jersey air traffic control to request a descent. While at 2300 feet, the aircraft lost contact and disappeared from the radar near the lighthouse Casquets, 13 km northwest of Alderney, a region known among sailors for shipwrecks.

An initial search of the vehicle revealed no results in three days. A privately funded ship recovered the missing aircraft with sonar after six hours of research on 3 February.

The next day it was revealed that there was a visible body in the wreckage, which was discovered 67 meters below the surface of the ocean.

But what happened to the plane and what made it disappear?

The British Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) is responsible for determining the exact cause of the incident and, just as the helicopter tragedy occurred earlier this season involving the owner of Leicester City, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, it is likely to be long time.

In this case, the fact that the wreck is under water complicates things, although the company has announced its intention to issue an interim report "within one month from the date of # 39; accident. "

Speaking to BBCDavid Mearns, who headed the privately funded research mission, said the AAIB intended to save the wreckage.

"They contracted the ship they use, the Geo III, for three days. They could not recover it in this period, but that's probably what they evaluate, "he said. "If they can dive today [Monday], the weather is not very good today, so hopefully, they will get more information on how they might attempt this recovery. "

The AAIB, however, to have since announced their main goal will be to recover the body before any attempt to lift the plane.

"We are trying to recover the body. If we succeed, we will consider the possibility of recovering the wreckage of the aircraft, "said the AAIB in a statement.

"Strong tides mean that we can only use the Remote Control Vehicle (ROV) for limited periods every day, which means that progress is slow.

"Whatever the results, we will not make any further statements until families are informed."

If the cause of the accident is to be discovered, however, Mearns says that it is essential that the aircraft be recovered.

"The Air Accident Investigation Branch will be able to dismiss or discard things, this is the normal investigative process for any accident, so I think it's imperative that the plane be recovered, and even more so now, we know that someone is there, "he said Wednesday.

Although there is a lot of speculation about what could have happened to the plane, little has been confirmed so far.

For example, the pilot would have struggled to take off the plane three or four times at the Nantes-Atlantique airport.

Commander Jorge Polanco said TyC Sports that he thought that the flight conditions would have been very dangerous for the type of aircraft in which they were traveling.

"The Piper Malibu is an excellent single – engine aircraft, with a capacity of seven people, but I am very surprised that they performed this operation by flying at night, with what is it. European winter right now, "he told the Argentine TV station.

"It's like flying in Antarctica in winter with a plane of this size, which can suffer from so-called icing, stopping the engine and I think an event related to that has occurred. "

Richard Taylor of the Civil Aviation Authority, however, suggested that this may not be the cause.

"A single engine airplane can be chartered. We do not know what the status of this particular flight was – whether it was a commercial or private flight, " Wales online quote him as having said.

"Nothing prevents a single-engine airplane from flying in the shops at night. They were limited to daytime business until a few years ago for a turbine engine.

"They can now fly at night and under difficult conditions. But we do not know what engine this plane has. "

Meanwhile, a WhatsApp audio message sent by Sala while he was in the plane was published in his native country by Ole and suggests that the aircraft was not in the state that it should have been.

"Anyway, guys, I'm in this plane that feels like falling apart and I'm going to Cardiff … If in an hour and a half you have no news of me, I do not know if they will send someone to pick me up because he can not find me, but you'll know it … dad, I'm scared! He would have said.

It will probably be necessary to wait several months before knowing definitively the cause of the accident. If the AAIB can not find the proper way to extract the wreck from the seabed, it is possible that it will never be given to it.