One day after a tractor-trailer went over the edge of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel four divers were under the bay's frigid waters searching for the cab portion of the vehicle.
CBBT Police tell News 3 divers with Portsmouth's Crofton Industries conducted the search.
Owner Bob Crofton says the divers located the cab in the waters around the CBBT late Friday afternoon.
"Nobody was going to make it out [Thursday] but [Friday] it had calmed down enough that we could make it out there and carry out our operations," said Crofton.
According to Crofton divers searched an area between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet near where the truck landed in the water. He says low visibility means his divers have to get creative.
"They place an object on the bottom and work a sweep line off of that working in 10 foot increments away from that particular point sweeping back-and-forth until they clear that area and then move to a different area," said Crofton.
Divers also checked to see if the truck's cab damaged any of the bridge underwater.
Police are hoping the truck's black box will help them learn more about the Thursday crash that investigators believe happened when 47-year-old Joseph Chen lost control of his tractor-trailer while trying to pass another tractor-trailer on the bridge.
Rescue teams were able to reach him in the water, but Chen died on the way to the hospital. Family tells News 3 he died of cardiac arrest.
Crofton says the cab has been marked, but it's up to police and the Coast Guard to figure out how to retrieve it.
At last check the trailer portion of the truck was several miles out to sea.
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CBBT Police say wind was not a factor in deadly tractor trailer accident
