Overview
- An 80-year-old man is reported missing in the Kettwig area of Essen and authorities are treating the Ruhr as the likely location after scent-tracking dogs indicated a trail that ended at the river.
- Police Essen, Feuerwehr Essen and the DLRG have mounted a coordinated water search that includes three boats, sonar equipment, a search diver and aerial drones.
- Mantrailer teams are scent-tracking dogs trained to follow a person's scent; their independent alerts provide investigatory leads but do not by themselves prove a person’s location.
- Search operations are focused along the Kettwiger Ruhrbogen toward the Kettwiger Schleuse and remain active with no confirmed recovery reported so far.
- The DLRG is a long-established volunteer water-rescue organization that supports such searches and authorities say sonar detections require diver or visual confirmation before they can be treated as a finding.