The search for missing British teenager Jay Slater continues into its second week in Tenerife, with the family receiving global attention online

Amid glaring neon lights, cheap alcohol and booming music, a British teenager became the 11th person to disappear from the Spanish island this year.

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

The last sign that something was wrong with him was a single call to a friend the next morning – he was lost, dehydrated, and his phone was about to die.

Since then, the island has been combed by Spanish police, mountain rescue teams, sniffer dogs, drones and others.

The case also caught the attention of online detectives and gave rise to “hideous” conspiracy theories, which only grew during the 11-day search.

“Lost in the mountains… his phone was set to 1 percent”

Mr Slater attended the final night of the New Rave Generation music festival at Papagayo nightclub and came to the island for the three-day event.

A friend who was with him, Lucy Law, wrote on the GoFundMe page: “On the last day of the festival I left by myself, before everyone else, because I was tired from the weekend.

Left Playa de las Americas between 3:00 and 6:00.

At 7.30am, Mr Slater posted a photo on Snapchat showing the front door of the property and tagged his location as Parque Nacional Rural de Teno, a remote area to the north.

On Monday morning, the teenager called Ms Law to say he had missed his bus and intended to walk back to their accommodation.

On foot it would be an 11-hour trek across the island.

At about 8:15 he told Mrs. Law “he was lost in the mountains, unaware of his surroundings, desperately needed a drink, and his phone had 1 percent battery left.”

“There is no water when it is warm all day long, and no coat or proper clothes when it is cold at night,” she said.

“It was 1 degree and very windy when I was outside in the middle of the night.”

The last confirmed witness to the incident was a woman whose brother owned the cottage where the two festival goers with whom Mr Slater returned were staying.

She said he asked about bus times – there was a two-hour wait – and she later saw him leaving Masca, the village where the property was located.

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

He has not been seen since.

Increasingly frequent searches and grainy CCTV images

Mr Slater’s friends raised the alarm shortly after receiving a call at 8.15am which suddenly cut off.

On Tuesday morning, his mother, Debbie Duncan, flew to the island to help with the search and later made a desperate plea directly to her son.

“We just need you to come home,” she said, according to the PA news agency.

When asked how the family was dealing with the situation, she replied: “No. I can’t cope at all.

In the following days, many volunteers, search and rescue teams, drones and specially trained tracking dogs took part in the search.

They focused on the area where his phone rang.

After receiving unconfirmed reports of a possible sighting of the animal in the city of Santiago del Teide, its father, Warren Slater, began putting up posters asking for information.

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

Police did not confirm this sighting.

Santiago del Teide Mayor Emilio Navarro said he did not believe the teenager managed to reach the city, even though police asked for surveillance footage.

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

“We couldn’t pass it on to them because they operate through a separate company. That’s why the police are talking to them.

“But that CCTV photo isn’t from us and I don’t recognize the place. I don’t think it’s Santiago del Tiede and he’s not here.

Missing persons cases are not uncommon in Tenerife.

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

Search and rescue teams have warned authorities that the island’s resources have been inadequate in the past when it comes to disappearances.

Volunteer coordinator for the SOS Disappeared Santiago search group, Carlos Martin, said in 2022 that families “feel abandoned.”

“Many people have gone missing in the Canary Islands and the number has increased since the pandemic,” he told The Sun newspaper.

“Maybe the topography and social structure have an influence, but we don’t know for sure.

“One of the biggest problems is that police often take time to locate a missing person’s phone number because bureaucratic procedures are a barrier.

“The time of disappearance is important and the process is too complicated, which wastes many days.”