David Mearns, the director of Bluewater Recoveries and the man at the head of the renewed efforts to locate the missing plane carrying Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson, says the families of both the player and the pilot know they are dead.
Mearns led the operation to find the aircraft, which disappeared off the radar near the Channel Islands on its voyage from Nantes, after a crowdfunding page raised well over the target to restart the search after initial investigations by authorities had been called off.
The plane was found just hours after the search had recommenced, with video footage revealing one body on board the wreckage.