The cellphone of missing Auckland man Lucas Cochrane was active for an hour after he was last seen.

Cochrane, 19, has been missing for nearly 48 hours but the family and searchers are still holding out hope that he's alive.

But the strain is starting to show in eyes of Dad, Dave, who was unaware his son was missing until Sunday morning.

Cochrane was in Whitianga with a friend for the weekend, attending a remembrance service for his friend's father at the Whitianga Fire Station.

He was last seen leaving about 10.30pm and Cochrane Snr says cellphone towers continued to pick up his cellphone for another hour before it stopped.

"The events as to what's happened seem to be a bit sketchy... It seems that he came out of the fire station about 10.30pm, his phone was active until 11.30pm from a local (Vodafone) repeater station so that tends to indicate he has been in the area until at least 11.30pm. Thereafter we just don't know ... Wherever he is he can't charge up and we've rung him plenty of times."

He hasn't been seen or heard of since, and that's unusual for the sporty youngster.

"He's a pretty pretty fit sort of a guy and quite reserved. This is out of character for him. If he happened to run out of phone credit or money or whatever he puts his hand up and makes contact. So this, for him to just suddenly disappear is totally out of character."

Cochrane Snr said his son had a new job in the logistics industry based at Auckland Airport's dangerous goods department and was due to be at work today. However, his boss had been understanding of the circumstances.

As for the search, Cochrane Snr said he and his partner Debbie Adamson and Luke's younger brother Sean - together with other family and friends had searched the township and it's surrounds countless times. And will continue to search tomorrow.

"As it stands at the moment we are covering off the ground in the local vicinity and we have a bach at Matarangi and we have been over there four times in the past 24 hours that I have been in town.

"We're not ruling out any area at this stage, everything is on the table so if anyone sees someone fitting his description please call 111 ... fingers crossed."

As for how the family were coping, Cochrane Snr said it was hard.

"You hear about this sort of thing on the news and it's one of those things that you feel for the family, and well, it's tough. Real tough."

NZ Herald