A privately funded search for the plane that was carrying the missing Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala will begin on Sunday.
The enterprise is being led by the marine scientist David Mearns on behalf of the Sala family.
Mearns said on Saturday: “Tomorrow the weather will be good. We will be able to operate tomorrow.”
The plane, a Piper Malibu, registration N264DB , carrying 28-year-old Sala and pilot David Ibbotson, 59, disappeared over the Channel on 21 January after leaving Nantes, France, for Cardiff.
The plane had requested to descend, then lost contact with Jersey air traffic control.
Mearns, the director of Blue Water Recoveries, will lead a team of seven on the vessel FPV Morven, operating around the clock. Mearns says he has located 24 major shipwrecks during his career.
The private search is being carried out in close co-ordination with the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). Last week, British military investigators announced they would be carrying out an underwater search for the plane after the Argentinian government asked the UK to extend the hunt.
Two seat cushions, which are likely to have come from the plane, were found earlier this week.
There will be two vessels, including one commissioned by the AAIB, searching an area of about four square nautical miles north of Guernsey. Mearns said the AAIB had a high level of confidence that the plane could be in that zone but it could have moved once on the seabed.
An official search operation was called off on 24 January as Guernsey’s harbour master, David Barker, said the chances of survival after such a long period were extremely remote. The decision sparked an outcry from Sala’s family and several Argentinian footballers including Lionel Messi.
Cardiff had signed the Argentinian striker for a club record of £15m and he was due to start training last month.
