A body seen in the wreckage of the plane carrying footballer Emiliano Sala and his pilot has been successfully recovered, according to investigators.
Remotely operated Vehicles (ROVs) were used in tough conditions to pull the body out of the water in a "dignified" way, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said on Wednesday night.
The body is being taken to Portland to be passed over to the Dorset coroner for examination, the AAIB said.
The aircraft remains 67 metres underwater 21 miles off the coast of Guernsey in the English Channel.
"Unfortunately, attempts to recover the aircraft wreckage were unsuccessful before poor weather conditions forced us to return the ROV to the ship," an AAIB spokesman said.
"The weather forecast is poor for the foreseeable future and so the difficult decision was taken to bring the overall operation to a close.
"In challenging conditions, the AAIB and its specialist contractors successfully recovered the body previously seen amidst the wreckage.
"The operation was carried out in as dignified a way as possible and the families were kept informed of progress."
The remains of the plane were discovered on Sunday evening. It had disappeared on January 21 as pilot David Ibbotson flew the aircraft from Nantes in France to Cardiff.
The AAIB said previously the work of the ROVs had been hampered by difficult tidal conditions around the Channel Islands.
The pilot had requested to descend before it lost contact with Jersey air traffic control.
An official search operation was called off on January 24 after Guernsey's harbour master David Barker said the chances of survival after such a long period were "extremely remote".
The remains of the aircraft were tracked down by a team coordinated by ocean scientist David Mearns. Known as the "Shipwreck Hunter", he has located some of the most elusive wrecks in the world.
Mearns and his team found the aircraft within two hours of starting their search.
He told the Press Association the discovery had been so quick because the team had been looking for a static object rather than in a dynamic environment searching for survivors.
"No one should walk away with the impression that the Coastguard and also the Channel Islands air search did anything other than a professional job," he said.
The AAIB said it expected to publish an interim report by the end of the month.
Share
