Cardiff City's Sala missing after plane disappears over English Channel

PARIS - Cardiff City's new soccer star, Emiliano Sala, was on board a light aircraft that disappeared en route to the Welsh capital for his club debut, France's civil aviation authority said on Tuesday.

Sala was flying from the French city of Nantes to Cardiff when the plane lost radar contact off the English Channel island of Guernsey late on Monday.

Rescue aircraft and boats had searched more than 1,000 square miles (2,590 square km) of sea for the single-engine Piper Malibu by midday on Tuesday, but "no trace of the missing aircraft had been found," Guernsey police said.

The 28-year-old Argentine-born forward joined struggling Cardiff City from FC Nantes last week for a club record fee of about 17 million euros ($19 million).

Argentine newspaper Clarin published a voice message that Sala apparently sent to friends.

"We're up in the plane and it seems it's about to crash," said the message, which Clarin said was verified by Sala's father, Horacio Sala.

"If you have not heard anything from me in an hour and a half, I don't know if they're going to send someone to find me, because, you know, they're not going to be able to," the message said. "Dad. I'm really scared."

Sala had played in France since 2012.