Hikers conducting their own search for missing Hawaii island student Daylenn Pua reported that they heard a cry for help near the Koolau ridgeline early Monday evening, prompting the Honolulu Fire Department to extend its extensive land and air search for one more day.
HFD officials had announced Mondaythat the search, which began Saturday, would be suspended pending new information.
Fire rescue personnel were assisting volunteer hikers out of the area when the party reported hearing the voice. "They were quite adamant that they heard something," said HFD spokesman Capt. David Jenkins. "So tomorrow, pending a determination on the weather, we’ll be back up there to continue the search."
The 18-year-old Hawaii island student was last seen Thursday catching a bus from Waianae on his way to hike the Haiku Stairs.
Pua was reported missing Friday afternoon, and HFD personnel began a wide-scale search Saturday morning.
Pua had told family members that he planned to hike the off-limits trail, also known as the Stairway to Heaven, and posted photos of himself indicating that he was on the stairs Friday.
Firefighters walked the 3,922 stairs of the trail, stretching about 2 miles, without finding any traces of the hiker. A recent landslide took out between 20 and 40 feet of the steep stairs.
On Sunday, firefighters in a helicopter scanned the Windward side of the Koolau Range and part of the Moanalua Valley Trail, which descends from the stairs toward Salt Lake.
On Monday fire rescue personnel searched along the Koolau ridgeline, where the signal from Pua’s mobile phone was last detected.
Members of Pua’s family and other volunteers conducted their own search.
Pua is a senior at Ke Kula o Ehunuikaimalino, a Hawaiian immersion school in Kealakekua on Hawaii island, and came to Oahu on Feb. 21 to visit his grandmother.
He was supposed to leave Saturday and return to school Monday.
