Snowboarder found dead in Alps as world watches on Twitter

Published on Tuesday 3 March 2009 21:11

A BRITISH snowboarder was found dead in the Swiss Alps yesterday after a major search for him was played out on a blogging website.

Entrepreneur Rob Williams, 29, from Liverpool, was discovered in a stream at the foot of a cliff. He is thought to have fallen more than 60ft to his death after getting lost near the upmarket resort of Verbier.

He was on holiday with a group of internet entrepreneurs including Michelle Dewberry, a former winner of the television show The Apprentice, who put posts on the online messaging site Twitter to spread the word about his disappearance.

Mr Williams and another snowboarder, Jason Tavaria, who was later found unscathed, got into difficulty after becoming separated from friends in a forest in bad weather.

A huge search was launched to try to find Mr Williams, who founded online music equipment retailer Dolphin Music.

Appeals for information were posted by his friends on Twitter. The disappearance sparked a frenzy of messages as friends and colleagues around the world exchanged news.

Mr Tavaria managed to send rescuers a GPS satellite navigation signal from his iPhone which pinpointed his location.

Ms Dewberry wrote in her first message: "2 of our ski party been missing since 4pm. Conditions terrible. 1 guy found but trapped. 20 man team searching for other."

Fellow entrepreneur Alex Hoye updated Twitter with a series of messages last night, the first of which appealed for help from the online community: "Urgent: If anyone has or knows Rob Williams of Dolphin Music's mobile, please send. Mtn rescue in progress," he wrote.

It was followed by another update: "Rob's number rec'd via Twitter; Jason now found using GPS/Google maps & phone … still working on finding Rob."

Mr Williams and Mr Tavaria were school friends in St Albans, Hertfordshire, before studying in Liverpool. They used their student loans to set up Dolphin Music, which expanded to include three high street music shops in Liverpool, Gateshead and Huddersfield.

In a separate incident last week, two British tourists fell to their deaths in the French Alps.

Richard Ryan, 27, of York, and Christopher Lockwood, 28, of Leeds, died in the resort of Les Deux Alpes. Reports said the pair fell down a steep valley after leaving a bar late on Wednesday.

French rescuers said the bodies were found on Friday in the Black Coombe ravine near the Deux Alpes ski station east of Grenoble.