The Civil Guard has issued a major update in the case of missing Jay Slater as officers give their first press conference.
Spanish police said they “have certain clues”, as a “massive search” is launched 13 days after the teenager disappeared.
Authorities are searching around the “multitude of roads, trails and ravines that are found in Masca” – the village where Slater was last tracked.
Speaking at the beginning of the search, Cipriano Martin, Chief of the Mountain Rescue team of the Guardia Civil, said: “The plan will consist of carrying out a search with the people that have gathered here today, a thorough search.
Authorities are searching around the ‘multitude of roads, trails and ravines that are found in Masca’ – the village where Slater was last tracked
Reuters
“Because at the stage we’re at, we need to start ruling areas out, and need to be sure that the areas we’re searching – even though you may have already done a lot of work in the last few days – is looked at really thoroughly, and then can be ruled out.”
The teenager travelled to an Airbnb in Masca with people he met at the NRG musical festival on Sunday, June 16.
The apprentice bricklayer spoke to his friend Lucy Law at 8am local time last Monday to say he had missed his bus, his phone had just one per cent battery and he would walk home instead.
Despite police meticulously searching the area, the teenager has so far not been found.
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In the latest police update about the search, Martin said: “It’s going to be – obviously – based off of the evidence that we have.
“And the evidence that we have is: his last position, the conversations he had that last day [before he disappeared], and we will centre the search around this area.”
When asked if the Civil Guard is keeping an open mind about what happened, Martin replied: “Yes, at the moment, yes. While we still don’t know, we’re not going to posit any theories. Various lines [of enquiry] are being worked on.
“We have searched the Masca area, the Barranco de San Lopez area and the Barranco Retamar, Barranco de las Aneas, Barranco de Carrizales, we have searched the whole area. We know to a certain science that he was here because the coverage of his phone its undeniable that he was around this point.
“And that’s where we have difficulties, because once you turn off your phone, it can no longer be traced. So while he was walking – and we don’t know how long he could have walked for – with his phone switched off, no antenna is going to pick that up.
A volunteer firefighter searches for the young Briton Jay Slater in the Juan Lopez ravine near Masca
Reuters
“And the technology we have – it traces phones, but not people. We have certain clues, and we have to stick to those.”
Police in Tenerife are working on the hypothesis that Slater began walking “down to the bottom of the ravine”.
It follows the phone call with Law in which he described getting “caught by a cactus”.
Martin added that the 19-year-old “had to have left the main road,” because “if you were walking along the main road you wouldn’t get pricked by a cactus.”
A huge search party continues to sweep the area – previously described as “immense” – with the focus on three main ravines in Masca.
