Jay Slater: Everything we know about the Briton missing in Tenerife

Jay Slater missing in Tenerife after tourist embarked on 11 hour walk

Worried relatives and friends are still searching for a sighting of British teenager Jay Slater after he vanished on the island of Tenerife.

The 19-year-old was on his first ever holiday without his family when he vanished as he walked back to his accommodation last Monday morning.

He had gone to stay with two people he had met at the NRG music festival and, having missed the last bus back, embarked on what would have been an 11 hour walk.

The apprentice bricklayer has not been seen or heard from since calling his friend at 8.15am to tell her he was lost, in need of water and that his phone was low on battery.

Authorities and friends of the family are scouring the island’s Rural de Teno park, an area popular with hikers and thought to be his last known location.

As the search for the missing teenager continues, here’s everything we know about his disappearance:

Jay Slater is missing in Tenerife (Supplied)

Where is his last known location?

Jay Slater, from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, was last heard from on Monday morning as he told a friend he planned to walk back to his accommodation after missing a bus, a journey expected to take around 11 hours on foot.

He had been on the island to attend NRG music festival with friends in what was his first holiday without his family.

On Sunday, his friend Lucy Law told Manchester Evening News that she had left the festival early, with Jay staying on with some friends. He later stayed at their accommodation but left in the morning to return to his own.

Ms Law was the last to hear from the teenager when he called her at 8.15am on Monday, alerting her that he was lost, needed water and that his phone was on one per cent.

Jay Slater in social media photo posted by friend days before his disappearance (Supplied)

She told the MEN that one of the people Mr Slater had met had driven them back to his apartment in a hire car and the missing man had not realised how far away it was.

“He’s ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there,” she said.

“But then in the morning he’s set off walking, using his maps on his phone and ended up in the middle of mountains with nothing around.”

Mr Slater’s phone then cut off, with his last location showing as the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous area popular with hikers in the north of the island.

When Jay Slater’s phone cut off, his last location showed as the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous area popular with hikers (Alamy/PA)

Where have authorities been searching?

A specialist mountain rescue team, including a police helicopter and sniffer dogs, have been deployed to look for Jay.

Search teams have narrowed their efforts on small buildings close to where his phone last pinged in Tenerife.

Officers from the Guardia Civil in the Canary Islands could be seen circling two structures at the bottom of a ravine in Rural de Teno Park on Sunday.

Efforts appeared to be solely focused on the one area after days of searches in the village of Masca and the surrounding landscape.

Those conducting the searches on the seventh day of the hunt for Mr Slater could be seen looking into blue barrels outside one of the small buildings.

A member of a search and rescue team search near the last known location of Jay Slater (James Manning/PA Wire)

Andrew Knight, known on YouTube as the Knightrider, who joined the search told The Independent of the climate in Tenerife: “It’s rugged mountainsides, loose rocks that fall away underfoot, cactuses everywhere. It’s a disorienting landscape and also has extreme weather changes.

“At night the temperature drops to around 12 degrees Celsius, but with the wind chill and the thin air at altitude, it feels around 10 degrees.

“In the sunshine, it can go up to 28 degrees. It also can be quite damp, it rained a little when I was there. It has its own microclimate that changes by the hour.”

A specialist mountain rescue team, including a police helicopter, has been deployed to look for Jay (Victoria Roocroft/BBC)

What have his friends and family said?

Jay’s friends and family have raised concerns he may have been taken against his will.

His mother, Debbie Duncan, flew to Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on Tuesday morning to search for him.

Ms Duncan told how she has “not slept” since the 19-year-old disappeared.

(Supplied)

She said she did not know whether the Spanish authorities turning down an offer of help from the UK was because they viewed it as “an insult”.

Asked how the family was coping with the situation, Ms Duncan said: “We’re not. I’m not coping very well at all.

“I’ve not slept, I’m exhausted. It’s been awful.

“I can’t give up on him, I just can’t.”