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A body has been recovered from the wreckage of a plane that crashed into the English Channel carrying professional soccer player Emiliano Sala.
Key points:
- The body was successfully recovered and handed to a coroner for identification
- Attempts to recover the wreckage were unsuccessful due to "poor weather"
- During Cardiff's first match since Sala went missing, Cardiff players and fans paid tribute to him
Sala, 28, had been en route from Nantes in western France on January 21 to make his debut for Premier League team Cardiff City when the plane disappeared.
The only other person on board was pilot David Ibbotson.
The UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) did not disclose the identity of the body.
The wreckage of the plane, with one body visible inside, was found on Sunday near Guernsey following a privately funded underwater search.
Attempts to recover the aircraft wreckage were unsuccessful, because of bad weather, the AAIB said in a statement.
The body will be handed over to a coroner, and police are expected to confirm its identity after a full examination.
Players and fans pay tribute to Sala
Sala had agreed to join Welsh club Cardiff for a club-record fee of 15 million pounds ($19.6 million) from French Ligue 1 club Nantes.
He and the pilot are believed to have died as the single-engine Piper Malibu aircraft crashed into the sea.
On Saturday at Cardiff's Premier League match against Bournemouth — which was the club's first home game since Sala went missing — players and supporters paid tribute to the missing player.
After the team scored in the fifth minute, the Cardiff players held up a T-shirt bearing the image of Sala, who never played a game for the club.
Fans were handed daffodils as they entered the Cardiff City Stadium and in the 28th minute, a round of applause swelled around the stadium as fans sang Sala's name.
Sala's name, in the colours of his native Argentina, was also spelled out behind one of the goals as supporters held cards aloft.
Reuters/AP
Topics: disasters-and-accidents, air-transport, soccer, sport, united-kingdom, argentina