Missing police officer prompts large scale search near Byron Bay

A large scale search is underway near Byron Bay for a missing Queensland police officer.

Transcript

00:00There's around 50 searchers who've gathered here at Broken Head south of Byron Bay to

00:07resume the search this morning for Queensland Police Officer Jay Notaro.

00:12Now the search was launched yesterday around lunchtime when a car was found here in the

00:17car park and also an abandoned surfboard.

00:21We've got officers from Queensland Police and New South Wales Police, there's the SES,

00:27we've got Surf Rescue out here as well.

00:30It does remain a search of both the land and sea, so we've got dirt bikes here, there's

00:36jet skis out to sea and also people covering the terrain on bush, primarily to the south

00:43here at the Broken Head Nature Reserve and also along the beach further to the north.

00:48The inspector is a very strong swimmer, he's a previous officer in charge of the Queensland

00:52Water Police, a very strong swimmer, a very experienced surfer and the conditions that

00:58presented over the past few days were quite calm so he would be extremely capable of managing

01:02those conditions due to his experience, an extremely fit man as well.

01:06I have heard this morning from a surfer that the swell out there is pretty big, around

01:11eight foot and pretty murky conditions with a sweep that's sort of variable depending

01:17on how close inshore you are and that is making it pretty difficult to really keep

01:25an eye or be able to really see what's going on out there so that's making the search somewhat

01:29difficult out to sea.

01:31On land it is pretty rugged terrain so that will keep officers and volunteers busy as

01:38they scour this area looking for Detective Inspector Notaro.

01:43His family are understandably and colleagues are very concerned for his welfare.

01:49They say this is completely out of character for him.