Huge search being carried out as Manchester man, 24, goes missing in Spain
A 'land, sea and air' search has been carried out after a man from Manchester disappeared on Spain's Costa Brava. The 24-year-old man has named locally as Matthew Chapman.
It has emerged that he left the UK in a van which was then found 'abandoned' at a viewpoint overlooking the Mediterranean, near Tossa de Mar.
The Catalonian resort is about 60 miles north of Barcelona and the same distance south of the French border.
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family are said to have reported him missing on Wednesday, April 30.
Police and firefighters launched a two-day search operation to look for him, earlier this week. A helicopter and drones were used before it was called-off late on Thursday.
A spokeswoman for the Mossos d'Esquadra regional police force said: 'It was a land, sea and air search which took place on Wednesday and Thursday. The investigation into the missing man's whereabouts is continuing.'
It is not clear what the police's next steps will be.
Catalan news website El Caso reported last night investigators had discovered Matthew travelled to France on May 1 on the Eurotunnel and spent time in Portugal and Spain before his mobile phone signal petered out near Tossa de Mar around 60 miles north of Barcelona.
Officers are said to be keeping an open mind on what could have happened to Matthew.
The Mossos d'Esquadra force previously led the probe into rugby player and X Factor star Levi Davis' disappearance in Barcelona.
The last confirmed sighting of Levi was of him leaving an Irish pub in the Catalan capital on the night of October 29 2022 after taking a boat from Ibiza with just £35 in his pocket and no change of clothes.
The port search and another in the Llobregat Delta, one of Catalonia's most important wetland zones near Barcelona where police said at the time sea currents could have taken his body or items of clothing, failed to yield any clues.
They were organised after four members of cruise liner MSC Bellissima, which docked in Barcelona around eight hours after the pub CCTV sighting, said they had seen a man in the sea wearing the same light-coloured top as Levi and shouting for help in English.
A lifebuoy was thrown to him and coastguards in Barcelona mobilised their helicopter called Helimer 203 and a vessel called Salvamar Mintaka.
A boat operated by firefighters was also sent to the scene along with police and Red Cross vessels but they were stood down after it was confirmed no-one was missing from the cruise liner and police confirmed no-one had been reported missing in port waters or in the sea off Barcelona.
A British tourist went missing at Alicante airport at the end of March after a stag do in Benidorm before being found.
Jason Taylor, 36, vanished as he waited for a flight back to Birmingham, sparking a police manhunt which had a happy ending nearly four days later on April 1 when he was spotted walking along a nearby beach.
Police sources said after he was found that the fact he didn't have his mobile phone on him had caused him extra complications.
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