He is missed in Nantes. Many tributes at this week's game.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47065941

The plane has been located.

Emiliano Sala: missing Premier League footballer’s plane found
The plane carrying the missing Cardiff City player and pilot David Ibbotson has been found
Sun 3 Feb 2019 22.28 GMT

The wreckage of the plane that vanished with the Premier League footballer Emiliano Sala on board has been found within hours of a search starting in the sea off the Channel Islands.

A search boat hired privately by Sala’s Argentinian family – thanks partly to a crowdfunding appeal – located the wreckage on Sunday morning.

The crew passed the details of the location on to government investigators, who used a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to examine the spot.

There was no immediate official confirmation of what was found but the shipwreck specialist leading the private investigation, David Mearns, said the plane had been discovered.

He said it had been located by the privately hired vessel FPV Morven, which had passed the information on to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). Mearns said the AAIB had moved its vessel, the Geo Ocean III, to the spot and visually identified the wreckage with an ROV.

He said the family of Cardiff City striker Sala and the pilot, David Ibbotson, had been informed and the AAIB would be making a statement on Monday. It is believed it will be up to the AAIB to recover the vessel.

No information about whether any bodies were in the plane was given.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... lane-found

Emiliano Sala Suffered Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in Fatal Plane Crash
By Anna Schaverien
Aug. 14, 2019
LONDON — Emiliano Sala, the Argentine soccer player who died in a plane crash in the English Channel in January, had been exposed to “potentially fatal” levels of carbon monoxide, the British authorities revealed on Wednesday.

Mr. Sala, 28, who was on a flight from France to Wales on Jan. 21 when the aircraft went down, sustained carbon monoxide poisoning in the cockpit of the plane, according to a report released by Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch as part of its inquiry into the crash.

Toxicology tests on Mr. Sala’s blood revealed that he had been exposed to the odorless, colorless gas at a high level that “in an otherwise healthy individual is generally considered to be potentially fatal,” according to the interim report, or special bulletin.

Mr. Sala’s body was not recovered until February. The body of the plane’s pilot, David Ibbotson, has not been found, but investigators concluded that he would most likely have been affected by carbon monoxide exposure.

Exposure to carbon monoxide, or CO, can damage the brain, heart and nervous system, with symptoms including blurred vision, loss of coordination, seizures, heart attack and unconsciousness.

“It is clear from the symptoms that exposure to CO can reduce or inhibit a pilot’s ability to fly an aircraft depending on the level of that exposure,” the report said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/worl ... crash.html

Emiliano Sala: pilot was not licensed to fly plane that crashed
David Ibbotson had not completed night-flying training and was not allowed to be paid for carrying passengers, report finds
Steven Morris
Fri 13 Mar 2020 16.55 GMT
The pilot of the plane carrying the professional footballer Emiliano Sala was not licensed to fly the aircraft that plunged into the sea, killing both of them, an official report has concluded.

David Ibbotson had not completed night-flying training or recently practised instrument flying, a vital skill when piloting a plane on a dark night in poor weather, and the aircraft was travelling far faster than it should have been just before the accident.

Investigators concluded that Ibbotson was being paid to fly Sala even though under the terms of his private pilot’s licence this was not allowed, and said the regulations under which the light aircraft operated also meant it should have not been flown commercially.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that the loss of control that led to the crash was made more likely by the fact that neither the pilot nor the plane had the required licences or permissions for the flight.

Investigators found such unlicensed “grey” flights frequently took place in the world of sport, business and leisure and called for more action to clamp down on them. The Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) investigation and enforcement team is continuing to carry out a criminal investigation into the accident.

Argentinian striker Sala, 28, was being flown from Nantes in France to his new club Cardiff City when the aircraft plunged into the English Channel on 21 January 2019. His body was recovered from the seabed 68 metres down.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... sed-to-fly