A British diver was missing last night after a trip to a wreck in the English Channel went wrong.

The man, aged over 60, disappeared as his dive group resurfaced at lunchtime yesterday after exploring the wreck of the Empire Javelin, a infantry landing ship that took part in the D-Day landings and was torpedoed and sunk in December 1944.

Coastguard officials and officers from Sussex Police were preparing to interview the skipper of the ship and the remaining group members late last night after the boat returned to Brighton.

A spokesman for the Maritime & Coastguard Agency said that the search was being co-ordinated by the Regional Operation Search and Rescue Centre in Joburg, northern France, as the wreck lay in French waters.

“He was on the Channel Diver, out of Brighton, but we are not sure where he is from,” the spokesman said. “We got the call at 12.50pm just saying there was an overdue driver.”

The missing man was in a party of four searching the wreck, which is at a depth of 60m and situated 21 nautical miles from Barfleur on the Normandy Coast.

“The three others came back to the surface and he didn’t,” said a spokesman for the Maritime Prefecture in Cherbourg. The man had a rebreather, which cleans and recirculates air, and is believed to have had 90 minutes of oxygen in his tank.

After the alert was raised by the authorities in Solent, the French Civil Security dispatched a Dragon 76 helicopter with three divers. However, the spokesman said that they were unable to dive because the currents were too strong.

Two British search aircraft and a French customs helicopter took part in the search, along with five vessels sent by the French Navy and France National Sea Rescue Society.

“We placed a lot of means at the disposal of the search team because the tides are very strong and the man could have been carried a long distance if he had come up to the surface,” the spokesman said.

The search operation was stopped at 9.30pm. It will resume again this morning but the spokesman said that there was little hope that the man could survive. “He is in diving gear, which will enable him to stay in the water long, but the chances of survival now are limited,” he said.

The diver’s buddy is believed to have lost track of him as they surfaced.

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