Footballer’s pilot was part-timer drafted in at the eleventh hour
A PART-TIME pilot and gas engineer was drafted in at the last minute to fly the plane carrying Emiliano Sala, the £15 million Cardiff City signing, The Daily Telegraph understands.
Sources close to the investigation said-officials in Nantes, north-west France, had been expecting an experienced pilot who regularly flew highprofile footballers around Europe.
Instead, David Ibbotson, a gas engineer whose main flying activity was taking parachutists for jumps, was at the controls.
It is claimed the 60-year-old aborted three take-offs and had joked with friends on Facebook that he was a “bit rusty” in the days before.
Last night, the four-day English Channel search for Sala was called off despite the player’s sister, Romina, flying into Britain from Argentina to beg authorities to do everything in their powers to find him. Capt David Barker, the Guernsey harbour master, said that after four days of searching, the final aircraft looking for the men and their plane had landed, and that chances of survival were “extremely remote”.
However, Sala’s sister reportedly told the search team: “Please, please, please don’t stop the search. We understand the effort but please don’t stop the search. For us, they are still alive.”
Speaking outside Guernsey police station, Mr Barker said that the families of both men had been told that the search was to be “terminated” and that Sala’s family were “not content with the decision to stop the search”.
He said: “I understand that Emiliano Sala’s family are not content with the decision to stop the search, and I fully understand that.”
The Piper PA-46 Malibu left Nantes airport at around 7.15pm on Monday and was en route to Cardiff, where Sala was looking forward to joining up with his new team-mates.
Just after an hour into the flight, Mr Ibbotson, from Scunthorpe, asked air traffic control to reduce altitude from 5,000ft to 2,300ft, but a short time later the Guernsey coastguard was alerted after the aircraft disappeared.
Rescuers had seen a line of heavy weather in proximity to where the plane was last in contact near Hurd’s Deep, an underwater valley, nearly 500ft in depth.
“Finding anything in that depth of water is going to be extremely difficult,” Mr Barker added.
Mike Tidd, the pilot flying the Channel Islands Air Search plane said that there was now “absolutely no chance of finding anybody alive”.