28 June 2024 , 15:21
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A British hiker, from London, has been found lifeless in the Spanish Pyrenees - emergency services had been searching for the 70-year-old since he disappeared on Monday
A British tourist who went missing in Spain has sadly been found dead, authorities confirmed.
The 70-year-old hiker, from London, vanished on Monday which sparked a search and rescue operation this week. Mountain experts from the Civil Guard’s Greim unit, the same type of police specialists that are looking for Jay Slater, 19, who disappeared in Tenerife, had been involved.
On Friday, police confirmed that the pensioner was discovered lifeless close to the Aspe Peak, a mountain in the western Pyrenees of Huesca on the western side of the Aragon Valley. The tragedy was made public after three Greim officers looking for the pensioner found him around 1pm yesterday.
The trio alerted a police helicopter which was scanning the area and informed the team so he could be transferred to a mountain refuge closeby. The elderly man is understood to have been walking between the Lizara and Candanchu mountain refuges. The Civil Guard in Huesca are said to have received a message from the UK’s Interpol office in Manchester giving them the co-ordinates of an SOS wristband the hiker was wearing.
Three officers alerted a nearby helicopter ( Image: SOLARPIX.COM)
Footage released by the Civil Guard showed the operation to rescue the tragic Brit’s body. French police mountain rescue experts are also understood to have participated in the operation to find the hiker after the alarm was raised. He was located by the 8,678ft peak which towers over the Spanish ski resort of Candanchu and the Somport pass on the border with France.
In November 2020 British hiker Esther Dingled vanished on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Her remains were found in July 2021 near the spot where she disappeared. Esther, 37, went trekking from the village of Benasque, around 175 miles east of the spot where the British pensioner’s body was found. It was not immediately clear today what had led to the latest tragedy.
The latest discovery comes at the same time that Spanish police ramp up their search to locate Jay Slater who vanished on June 17. He was spotted leaving a club at around 4am, before travelling to an AirBnb in the village of Masca. Jay reportedly stayed the night at the property which was being rented by two British men. He is said to have later called his friend to tell her that he was going to make an 11-hour walk back to his hotel accomodation and hasn’t been heard from since.