The U.S. Coast Guard believes that they have located a truck driver who crashed off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT) in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Thursday afternoon, according to a report.
Around 2 p.m on June 22, officials say that a truck traveling north on the CBBT crashed off the bridge and into the bay below near the 1 mile marker.
Around 12:30 p.m. on Friday, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jennifer Stockwell told news outlets that divers working to recover the submerged cab of the truck reported seeing a body inside.
“We do believe the individual is in the tractor-trailer,” Stockwell said, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
The Coast Guard says that the search will officially continue until the identity of the person within the truck is confirmed.
Officials earlier confirmed that there was only one man inside the truck when it went over the bridge.
A local news outlet initially reported that a person dove into the water to try to save the truck driver, but CBBT officials have disputed this report.
The investigation into what caused the truck to crash off the CBBT is ongoing.
Chopper 10 has new video of the search for the driver of a tractor-trailer that went over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Thursday afternoon. @WAVY_News @FollowTheGulls #chopper #breaking #cbbt #news #virginiabeach pic.twitter.com/wNUpSmCxWA
— David Craft (@CraftyWavy) June 23, 2023
Multiple agencies joined the Coast Guard in the search, including Virginia Beach Police, Virginia Beach Fire Department, Virginia Beach EMS, and Virginia Marine Resource Commission.
On December 29, 2020, 47 year old box truck driver Erik Mezick crashed off the CBBT into the water. His body was not recovered until April 2021.
