Search for missing British teenager Jay Slater continues in Tenerife for a second week as his family receives global attention online

Amid bright signs, cheap booze and booming music, a British teenager has become the 11th person to disappear from a Spanish island this year.

Jay Slater, a 19-year-old apprentice mason, spent his last night among the hordes of young tourists at Playa de las Americas in Tenerife on June 16.

A single phone call to a friend the next morning – he was lost, he was dehydrated, his phone was about to die – was the last sign of his presence.

Spanish police, mountain rescue teams, sniffer dogs, drones and many other teams have since combed the island.

The case also attracted the attention of online sleuths and sparked “nefarious” conspiracies that only grew during the 11-day search effort.

“Lost in the mountains… his phone was at 1%”

Mr Slater was attending the final night of the New Rave Generation music festival at Papagayo nightclub, after travelling to the island for the three-day event.

His travel friend, Lucy Law, wrote on a GoFundMe page: “On the last day of the festival I left alone, earlier than everyone else, because I was tired from the weekend.

He left Playa de las Americas between 3 and 6 a.m.

Mr Slater posted a photo on Snapchat at 7.30am, showing the gate of a property and listing Teno Rural National Park, a remote area in the north, as its location.

On Monday morning, the teenager called Ms Slater, telling her he had missed the bus and planned to walk back to their accommodation.

On foot, this would have been an 11-hour trek across the island.

At around 8.15am he told Ms Slater he was “lost in the mountains, unaware of his surroundings, desperate for a drink and his phone was at 1%”. .

“He doesn't have water when it's hot during the day, and he doesn't have a coat or suitable clothing when it's cold at night,” she said.

“It was 1 degree and extremely windy when I looked out in the middle of the night.”

The last confirmed sighting was made by a woman whose brother owned the chalet where the two festival-goers Mr Slater had returned with were staying.

She said he asked her what the bus times were – there was a two-hour wait – and later saw him leaving Masca, the village in which the property was located.

His phone last recorded his location at 8:50 a.m. in the Teno Rural National Park, an area of ​​more than 8,000 hectares made up of mountains, valleys, cliffs and some of the deepest ravines on the island.

He has not been seen since.

Growing research and grainy CCTV image

Mr Slater's friends raised the alarm shortly after receiving the 8.15am phone call, which ended abruptly.

On Tuesday morning, his mother, Debbie Duncan, travelled to the island to help with the search and then made a desperate appeal directly to her son.

“We just need you home,” she said, according to the AP newswire.

Asked how the family is handling the situation, she replied: “We are not coping with it very well. I'm not doing very well at all. »

In the days that followed, the search expanded to include several volunteers, search and rescue teams, drones and specially trained sniffer dogs.

Their search focused on the area where his phone rang.

Following an unconfirmed report of a possible sighting in the town of Santiago del Teide, his father, Warren Slater, put up posters seeking information.

Grainy CCTV footage showed a figure walking past a church in the town – a few miles from where he was last seen – on the evening of June 17.

The sighting has not been confirmed by police.

Santiago del Teide Mayor Emilio Navarro said he did not believe the teenager had made it to the town, despite police asking him to film with security cameras.

“The Guardia Civil sent us an email asking for our security cameras,” he told The Independent.

“We couldn’t give it to them because they are organized in a separate society, that’s why the police talk to them.

“But this CCTV image doesn't come from us and I don't recognize this place. I don't think it's in Santiago del Tiede and it's not here.

Cases of missing persons are not uncommon in Tenerife.

Mr. Slater is one of 27 unsolved missing persons cases since 2008, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.

Search and rescue groups have already warned authorities that the island's resources are inadequate to deal with missing persons.

The coordinator of the volunteer search group SOS Disparus Santiago Carlos Martin said in 2022 that families “feel abandoned.”

“There are a lot of missing people in the Canary Islands and their numbers have increased since the pandemic,” he told The Sun newspaper.

“Maybe orography or social structure has an influence, but we don’t know.

“One of the big problems is that the police often take time to geolocate the telephone numbers of the missing person due to bureaucratic procedures which act as a barrier.

“The time of a disappearance is important and the process is too complex, which wastes several days.”