Father of missing ski instructor pushes for better search technology
The father of a missing ski instructor is questioning whether better technology could have given crews the upper hand in locating his son.
The search for Carson May near Sugar Bowl ski resort was suspended indefinitely earlier this week.
May’s father told the Sacramento Bee that an app called Find My Phone could have tracked down his son’s location using GPS coordinates.
But May says current privacy laws made it harder to gain access to that information.
Officials had pinged Carson May’s cell phone, but it only gave search crews a general area of where he might be.
According to KCRA, teams from the Bay Area were helping with the efforts, but the search was suspended Sunday due to bad weather.
Avalanche danger made the search more challenging. “We've identified six slides so far... and we believe those six slides came from a couple of days ago and they were in areas that we were not able to get into because of the dangers from last time,” said Sgt. Dave Hunt, Placer County Sheriff’s Office.
Sugar Bowl resort's marketing director said May had spent three years as a mountain sports learning center ski school instructor and that he had season passes at Sugar Bowl before.
They said he was familiar with the area.
The rescue teams searched both inside Sugar Bowl's boundaries, and out of bounds.
May’s father is now pushing for new technology like drones and satellite receivers for future search and rescue operations.