Underwater search for footballer Sala to start on Sunday

Fans pay their respects at the display of Cardiff City scarves and jerseys, flowers, messages and other tributes to the football club's new signing Emiliano Sala, whose flight disappeared from radar over the English Channel north of Guernsey, outside the Cardiff City Stadium in Cardiff, south Wales on January 26, 2019. Police on January 24, 2019 ended their search for Premier League player Emiliano Sala, saying the chances of finding the Argentinian alive three days after his small plane went missing over the Channel were "extremely remote". Their decision was met with anguished disbelief by the forward's sister Romina, who, speaking through tears, begged the search teams not to give up. The light aircraft transporting the 28-year-old striker, who signed for Cardiff City at the weekend, disappeared from radar around 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Guernsey on the night of January 21. (GEOFF CADDICK / AFP)

(AFP) - A shipwreck hunter hired by the family of missing footballer Emiliano Sala to look for his missing plane said he was planning to begin an underwater search on Sunday.

David Mearns of Bluewater Recoveries said on Monday that two fishing boats were searching the sea around the island of Guernsey as part of the search.

Guernsey police suspended the official search on Thursday after the plane went missing on January 21 with Cardiff City striker Sala and pilot Dave Ibbotson on board.

But there have been calls for the search to continue including from Argentine footballing legend Lionel Messi and the country's President Mauricio Macri.

Top players were among the more than 4,500 contributors to a crowdfunding page which has raised over 300,000 euros ($343,000) to look for Ibbotson, 59, and 28-year-old Sala, who moved from French club Nantes earlier this month.

"We have managed with the funds we have raised to resume the searches," Mearns said at a press conference in Guernsey airport that was shown by British broadcasters.

Mearns said a survey vessel equipped with sonar and a remotely operated vehicle was being readied in the port of Southampton in southern England to begin the underwater search "on the weekend, most probably on Sunday".

The search will focus on an area of roughly 25 square nautical miles where the plane disappeared from radar.

He said the depth of the sea in the area was only around 65 metres (2015 feet), going down to 110 metres at most.

"This will be one of the shallowest projects I have done in my career," he said.

"The biggest complication is the weather," he said.

"We cannot guarantee that we will find the plane," he told reporters, adding: "The family are determined to get answers that they don't have right now".

Sala's mother and sister, who arrived in Britain last week, on Monday flew over the area where the plane went missing.

Mearns said Sala's family now had "a better appreciation" of the efforts made by rescuers from Britain, France and Guernsey who carried out the search last week.

© Agence France-Presse