“It’s getting to that stage now,” he said in a telephone interview. “There’s a lot of people still on the hunt,” he added, but hopes of finding survivors are “very much plucking at straws.”

While in the air, as the plane was battered by harsh weather, Mr. Sala, speaking in Spanish, sent an audio WhatsApp message to a group of friends, said Diego Rolán, a Uruguayan player, who told a radio station in his home country that he was among the recipients of the message. Argentine news organizations obtained and posted on their websites what they said was Mr. Sala’s recorded message.

The man speaking sounds calm, asking his friends how they are doing, looking forward to joining his new team, complaining of being tired, and even yawning. But he also returns several times to his concern about the flight.

“If, in an hour and a half, you have no news from me, I don’t know if they are going to send someone to look for me, because they are not going to find me,” he says.