Jay Slater, from Lancashire, went missing in Tenerife three weeks ago, and now a former British military serviceman leading a search for him is targeting areas that have not been covered by Spanish police
A former British serviceman leading a search to find Jay Slater is battling through thick vegetation to try and find the teen in extremely dangerous terrain he said had not been covered by police.
Jay, 19, from Lancashire, disappeared in Tenerife three weeks ago and so far search efforts to find him have produced no signs of life. Police called off their rescue mission after nearly two weeks although the investigation remains open.
Christopher Pennington, a former British military serviceman, who moved to the Spanish island in 2006 is among the volunteers who are still carrying on the search through the treacherous land in the north west of Tenerife. Thick and high vegetation means that it is very difficult to navigate and this along with rocks and ravines make it perilous.
Chris is also reportedly critical of the Spanish police as he believes that they stuck to paths in the Parque Rural de Teno and so there is plenty of ground that has not been looked at. Jay is known to have left a three-day NRG festival in the south of Tenerife and he was last heard from after staying at an Airbnb in Masca with two men.
To put himself in Jay’s shoes, Chris followed the route exactly from the coastal party strip, south of the island. At 5.30am on Saturday, he followed the winding road north in his car from Papagayo nightclub to the Casa Abuela Tina Airbnb in Masca. He told the Mail that he didn’t exceed 15km an hour, because of the hairpin turns.
Chris believes that after Jay hurriedly left the holiday rental, he may have veered off down the ravine, thinking the coast was closer than it actually was. He claims to have pinpointed the ‘most sensible’ places to search, including the precise geolocation of Jay’s last phone ping.
Chris found black sunglasses in the undergrowth close to where Jay’s mobile was last recorded and now entering bushes he shows how difficult it is to walk through the sharp shrubbery. “I’ve worked out the most sensible places to search,” Chris said.
“You can see two large palm trees roughly one hundred yards from one another,’ he adds, pointing to a small area above the ravine. “Through a source, I have the precise geolocation where Jay’s phone last pinged. And it’s somewhere between those two trees.”
With his hands cut and scraped, he admitted that he could barely see two metres ahead of him. Dripping with sweat in the sweltering heat, he said: “You can only imagine that he’s looked down at the coastline in the distance and thinks it’s a lot closer than it really is. And that heading straight through the bush is the quickest route to safety.”
However, after coming off-road into the surrounding underbrush, Chris questions why the teen wouldn’t change course and return to the path with safer walking conditions. “If Jay came off the path and went through there, like I’ve just done, he wouldn’t leave the path again. You’d have to be mad.”
