Tenerife police have announced a massive search operation for missing Jay Slater tomorrow, and they are calling on volunteers to join.
It is scheduled to start at 9am tomorrow, June 29, in the area around the village of Masca where the 19-year-old was last seen on June 17.
It specifies it is seeking the cooperation only of volunteer professionals, including firefighters and Civil Protection workers as well as people who are experts in the type of rough terrain officers have been working in.
Revealing the dramatic new development today, Tenerife Civil Guard police chief Angel Sanz Coronado said: “Following the disappearance on June 17 of the young 19-year-old British man in the area of Masca, belonging to the municipality of Buenavista del Norte, the Civil Guard is prepared to carry out a mass search.
“Given that it is a steep, rocky area, full of uneven terrain and with many ravines, tracks and trails, we request the collaboration of all those volunteer associations that can help in this planned search that is intended to be carried out in a directed and coordinated way.
“This massive search will begin on Saturday 29 June at 09:00 hours. A meeting point will be established at the Mirador de la Cruz de Hilda in Masca to start the search in a logical and orderly way along the many paths and ravines that are found in Masca.
“Volunteers must contact the Civil Guard by telephone (0034) 696434031, before 8pm on Friday 28 June.”
A spokesman clarified that it was not asking the inexperienced general public to join the search, only experts in the type of terrain in the area as well as professional volunteers like firefighters and Civil Protection workers.
The Civil Guard has previously rejected the help of the Lancashire Constabularly, which has drawn criticism as the search so far has not found anything.
The mountainous terrain around Masca makes search and rescue efforts more difficult, as well as fuelling theories on what might have happened to Jay as he attempted to make the 11-hour walk back to his accommodation in Los Cristianos.
Former Metropolitan Police officer Peter Kirkham offered up the theory that he fell into a deep ravine while making the trek southward.
Kirkham wrote for The Mirror: “In the circumstances as first reported, and in particular the last phone call he is known to have made, the most obvious theory is that Jay Slater became lost whilst trying to walk back through a remote and difficult area totally unknown to him.