Shortly before the decision was made to end the search for the day on Wednesday, Sky Sports News spoke to Cardiff City chairman Mehmet Dalman, who is in France.
Dalman has been attempting to piece together the timeline of events that led up to Sala's plane going missing over the English Channel and he confirmed that the Premier League club's offer to provide travel arrangements to bring Sala to Cardiff was declined by the player.
"We have looked into this quite thoroughly and it is quite evident that Cardiff has the responsibility to offer the player to make arrangements [for travel], which will be commercial flights," Dalman told SSN.
"That would have meant taking the train from Nantes to Paris, then Paris to Heathrow, then drive down [to Cardiff].
"The player's reaction to that was that he wanted to make his own arrangements which would be much quicker."
When asked for clarification over whether Sala had decided to make his own travel arrangements, Dalman added: "I believe so, everything points to that fact. Whether he did it from Nantes' point of view or with his agent, we are trying to ascertain that."
Mark McKay, one of Sala's intermediaries involved in the deal to bring him from Nantes to Cardiff, also stated he was involved in the player's travel arrangements.
"I can confirm that when Emiliano made myself and his agent Meissa N'Diaye aware that he wished to travel back to Nantes following his medical and signing on Friday, I began to look into arranging a private flight to take him to Nantes on Saturday morning," McKay said in a statement.
"That evening, it was confirmed a plane was available to fly Emiliano on Saturday which could remain in Nantes until he was due to return to Cardiff on Tuesday.
"I have been in contact with officials from Cardiff City FC and the player's agent over these difficult past few days and will continue to do so."
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