Nantes supporters gathered to pay their respects to Emiliano Sala after learning the footballer was on a plane that went missing over the Channel Islands.<\/p>\n
The striker was travelling from France to Cardiff to begin his career in the Premier League, having joined the club in a \u00a315million transfer.<\/p>\n
On Monday night, though, the light aircraft he was travelling in went off radar near\u00a0Alderney.<\/p>\n
Thousands turned up on Tuesday to lay flowers, as many feared the worst.<\/p>\n
It has now emerged that Sala\u00a0sent voice messages to friends expressing fears his plane was going to \u201cfall apart\u201d shortly before the aircraft disappeared from radar.<\/p>\n
Five aircraft and two lifeboats scoured more than 1,000 square miles on Tuesday but found no traces of the plane.<\/p>\n
Guernsey Police said the chances of passenger survival were \u201cslim\u201d, as rescuers resumed their search early on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
The force tweeted: \u201cWe have resumed searching. Two planes are taking off and will search a targeted area we believe has the highest likelihood of finding anything, based on review of the tides and weather since it went missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoastal areas around Alderney and off-lying rocks and islands will also be searched from the air. Updates will be provided once information is available.\u201d<\/p>\n
They then explained\u00a0they were searching based on four possibilities:<\/p>\n
1. They have landed elsewhere but not made contact.<\/p>\n
2. They landed on water, have been picked up by a passing ship but not made contact<\/p>\n
3. They landed on water and made it into the life raft we know was on board<\/p>\n
4. The aircraft broke up on contact with the water, leaving them in the sea, adding the search area is prioritised on the life raft option.<\/p>\n
John Fitzgerald, chief officer of Channel Islands Air Search, said: \u201cI think with the sea temperatures and the sea conditions, the chances of finding anybody alive are reducing all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sea temperatures are very, very cold and just sap the core temperature of anybody in the water very, very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Euroflag, a company that makes flags and banners for football fans, has created a 70ft design in honour of Sala.<\/p>\n
It will read:\u00a0“We never saw you play and never saw you score, but Emiliano our beautiful Bluebird we will love you forever more.”<\/p>\n
The design features the flags of both Wales and Argentina, along with two Bluebirds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nantes supporters gathered to pay their respects to Emiliano Sala after learning the footballer was on a plane that went missing over the Channel Islands. The striker was travelling from France to Cardiff to begin his career in the Premier League, having joined the club in a \u00a315million transfer. On Monday night, though, the light…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}