A fresh search for the plane that was carrying missing Cardiff City footballer Emiliano Sala began on Sunday morning.
Marine scientist David Mearns, who is directing a privately-funded operation on behalf of the Sala family, said the weather conditions are expected to be good enough to allow it to start.
The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is also sending a team aboard a vessel, the Geo Ocean III, which is due to arrive at the search area north of Guernsey at around 9am.
The Piper Malibu N264DB carrying 28-year-old Sala and pilot David Ibbotson, 59, disappeared over the English Channel on January 21 after leaving Nantes in France for Cardiff.
Blue Water Recoveries director Mearns, who claims to have located 24 major shipwrecks during his career, said he would be leading a team of seven other people on the vessel FPV Morven and it would be operating around the clock.
He said the the search is being carried out “in close co-ordination” with the AAIB, which will take part in the operation for three days, as it searches an area of around four square nautical miles.
Mearns said the AAIB has a “high confidence level” the plane could be in that zone but it could have moved once on the seabed.
The plane had requested to descend before losing contact with Jersey air traffic control.
An official search operation was called off on 24 January after Guernsey’s harbour master Captain David Barker said the chances of survival following such a long period were “extremely remote”.
Two seat cushions, which are likely to have come from the plane, were found earlier this week.
The AAIB was advised by its French counterparts on Monday that part of a cushion was found on a beach near Surtainville on the Cotentin Peninsula.
A second cushion was found in the same area later that day.
Cardiff had signed the Argentinian striker for a club record £15 million and he was due to start training last month.
On Saturday, Cardiff marked their first home game since Sala’s disappearance.
Neil Warnock felt missing striker Emiliano Sala “was with us” after Cardiff boosted their bid to beat Premier League relegation with an emotional 2-0 victory over Bournemouth.
Warnock was tearful at the final whistle of Cardiff’s first home game since record signing Sala and pilot David Ibbotson went missing after the plane carrying them over the English Channel disappeared on January 21.
“I was all right until the final whistle and when I went on the pitch,” Warnock said. “I can’t begin to explain how difficult it’s been.
Inside the programme for the Premier League game with Bournemouth, the club statement read: “The news we received 12 days shook Cardiff City Football Club to its very core.
“Emiliano Sala and David Ibbotson remain missing and, during this most testing and emotional time, we continue to pray for them and their families.
“We have been profoundly moved by the goodwill and love that the football world has shared in support of our club, FC Nantes and the families of the missing men.”
“Knowing the lad Emiliano as I did he would have been us with us today.
“I said to the lads we’ve got to perform and I just thought the whole club was amazing. I was the proudest man to be manager of the whole club. The fans were just amazing.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and I will remember it for the rest of my life.”
Cardiff captain Sol Bamba and his Bournemouth counterpart Andrew Surman laid floral tributes on the halfway line before kick-off.
The players gathered on the centre circle to observe what Cardiff had described as a “minute’s reflection”, and fans held cards aloft behind one of the goals to spell out Sala’s name in the colours of Argentina.
Fans wore daffodils handed out to them by the club and many also sported scarves combining the colours of Cardiff and Sala’s former team Nantes.
Sala’s name was sung throughout a game which Cardiff won with a Bobby Reid double.
Reid’s fifth-minute opener from the penalty spot was celebrated by Cardiff players holding up a blue shirt with Sala’s photograph on, the win taking Warnock’s side to within two points of 17th-placed Burnley.