Four teens lost in North Wales ⚠️

[SuperDuperCabriolet]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12772971/police-hunt-four-young-men-vanished-Ford-Fiesta-North-Wales.html

Their families must be frantic :(

Posting to spread awareness in case any locals reading.

16 and 17

I live in the area and didn't want to say this but it's true. Drug use has increased so, so much here, and we do get a lot of young people driving in to the area to party at a safe distance from their parents. I really really hope that this isn't the case here and that they've found themselves in a bothy somewhere and are unaware of all of this. Those poor lads, and those poor parents.

The other story of the lost car that ran off the road was the first thing I thought of too, and that was in a reasonably populated area in some bushes, not in the middle of nowhere.

The BBC article states that all local car parks have been searched and the vehicle not found, so hopefully they've just parked up at the side of the road elsewhere and gone off camping.

Unfortunately if the car has gone off the road in the dark, it's going to be a needle in a haystack search.

I can't see a helicopter up at the moment on the ADS-B radar but hopefully getting the Registration and car details out there will be spread far and wide for people to keep an eye out to get some answers for their poor families.

Do we know their ages ?

BBC says one is 17.

It's likely they're all about the same age

"I keep refreshing the news for an update"

"My gut feeling is that they've had a terrible accident in the car"

"Feel sick"

"What a nightmare"

"this is making me think back to the missing car with teenagers a few months back, which had careered off the road into bushes. It doesn't sound good."

"The longer they are missing - well I cannot imagine"

"I realised it looks bad as they haven't been seen since Sunday but sometimes unlikely things do happen, look at those kids found alive in the Amazon after 40 days having survived a plane crash"

Absolutely pointless catastrophising.

It’s still term time, was this a recreational camping trip or organised by school (or eg Scouts, etc)?

Not necessarily. If you look at Google Street View from Shrewsbury to Porthmadog, there's quite a few sections where you can see junctions where the road joins with forest tracks. They could have driven down one of those to wild camp.

Not an organised trip, some of the parents are quoted as saying they didn't know they were planning on camping (one of the boys had said they were going to be with their grandfather).

They look like my dds classmates age wise, she is 16 and in the lower sixth.
I keep refreshing the news too, as does DH who is trained in search and rescue . This is North of us but I am familiar with the area. Weather can change very quickly in the mountains and the roads are , as a pp said, ones that “require concentration “, so my worry like all of us, is also that they have come off the road somewhere.

what has the grandfather said?

I hope they are found safe and well.I have a son the same age their parents must be so.worried

it is a vast area to be searching

Absolutely pointless catastrophising.

It's literally in Chat. It's people chatting, that's what it's for. You've spent time sifting through for those quotes, which is absolutely pointless as well, but we do these things on here.

I read in the newspaper, I think, that the car had been fitted with a black box. I hope that means they might be located more easily?

The parents must be frantic. It’s worrying that car hasn’t been found and all their phones not showing a signal. Absolutely praying they are found safe 🙏

BBC says the helicopter was called in at 03:00 and returned to base at 0430, so presumably using thermal imaging during the coldest hours when fewest other people are around.

Trouble is, without sightings of the car, they might be looking in the wrong places. It's only today they've released info on the car - a silver Ford Fiesta, registration HY14 GVO - and I hope that someone will come forward to say they've seen it. (Would I be correct in assuming no ANPR in the area?)

I think people saying “well my friend walked up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon, the mountain) in November” need to realise that that’s not what these boys were doing. They have gone camping in Eryri (the snowdonia national park), and the search area is being concentrated on Porthmadog, Tremadog etc, which is miles away from Snowdon. The mountain they have been searching so far is Cnicht, which isn’t a mountain that you want to be near in winter if you’re not an experienced walker / climber. The two situations are not comparable.

And for those saying that posters are “catasrophising”, if you knew the roads round that area, and how quickly the weather can turn, you’d be worried for the boys’ safety too. A lot of the roads are windy and narrow, with sheer drops at points.

I hope they’re found safe.

I read on Twitter that someone who lives in the area said in the last 29 minutes there has been a sudden influx of police and ambulance. Hope they have been found

OMG they are from my hometown. I immediately recognised the school jumper.

After all, they only disappeared 48 hours ago - it would be weird if all their phones were dead.

I actually don't think it would be that weird if the phones are a couple of years old, my phone would only last even 24 hours without a charger if I barely touched it.

It says both. At the beginning that they are experienced and then contradicts itself. Daily fail is hardly reliable. Hope they are found safe.

That'll depend on how the box "talks" to its base.

Also if the car engine is not running (eg parked somewhere) then there would be no power to the box to transmit (I'm assuming here that it's powered from the car - does anyone know if that's right?)

Yes

Oddly enough, I was watching a short documentary on County Lines last night and this was filmed mainly in Llandudno. The lads had gone missing from home in St Helen's, Merseyside
Hopefully this is nothing of the sort but I see how it would cross minds

Hope the lads are found soon, and found safe.

@hogangogs Very true, a well walked path is much safer. Sometimes we hike and don't see anyone. How cold is it at night at the moment?

The car is the most concerning element, my gut feeling is that if they did camp they would be home now, as they haven't got the gear for it to be comfortable.

Have just counted approximately 9 helicopters in the area on flight radar …hopefully the boys will be found soon .