Google Maps & Twitter Search for Ski Party

Update
It has now been announced that Rob Williams has unfortunately died. The entrepreneur fell 66ft down a cliff last night and due to the conditions, a rescue helicopter could not be scrambled. Search teams on foot found him this morning, by which time he had died in the freezing conditions.

TechCrunch UK has put together a tribute to Rob’s short life and his considerable achievements at Dolphin Music.


(The following was posted at 11pm (GMT) on March 2nd)

Today a group of technology entrepreneurs on a skiing vacation in Verbier in the Alps lost two of their party. One of the party, @alexhoye, put out this request via Twitter,

Urgent: If anyone has or knows Rob Williams of Dolphin Music's mobile, please send. Mtn rescue in progress

Soon after Alex then posted this Tweet,

Rob's number rec'd via Twitter; Jason now found using GPS / Google maps & phone (@joshmarch org'd); still working on finding Rob.

It seems that the party were able to call the missing skiers on their mobile phones. The lost skiers were then able to use Google Maps to generate a latitude and longitude of their position before sending it back to the group who then passed it on to Mountain Rescue.

One hour ago @acton posted this tweet,

it's 00:12h in Verbier. 0 degrees outside. search team still looking for Rob. no update yet. will let everyone know as soon as we hear

At the time of writing it seems that Rob has still not been found!

These seem to be the Twitter addresses of some of the ski party in Verbier who are currently Tweeting about this, @alexhoye, @acton, @joshuamarsh, @hermioneway, @MichelleDewbs

One member of the group of entrepreneurs who is on this skiing trip appears to be Michelle Dewberry, a winner of the UK edition of The Apprentice. Another of the group is Hermione Way of Techfluff.tv.





Via Twitter and ByteSurgery

Disclaimer: So far this story has been pieced together from a number of disjointed messages on Twitter.

Update

As of Tuesday 2.35pm (GMT) none of the party has added any messages to their Twitter accounts for 15 hours. TechCrunch published a story on this and then promptly took it down. I hope this doesn't mean the worst for the missing skier Rob Williams.