Recovery of fire-fighting plane to start Sunday morning

The navy's Rafael Martí says that the Neptuno has the capability to lift both the plane and the body from the 62 metres depth. Divers will make an initial assessment. The body of Antonio Alfaro will be removed first.

Colonel Manuel Aroca, chief of the air force's rescue centre, said earlier on Saturday that it is too early to draw any conclusions as to what happened to the plane or about the time taken to locate it: almost three days had passed before a navy minesweeper picked up the plane on its sonar equipment.

One theory is that the plane suffered a mechanical failure and that Antonio Alfaro had flown out to sea in order to land the plane. But in the process, something happened to make the plane crash and then sink.