Tri-Cities divers discover truck underneath mud near Columbia Park

Divers have discovered a stolen truck buried underneath mud in the Columbia River near Bateman Island.

Crews with Columbia Basin Dive Rescue started searching the river bottom late Monday morning after a fisherman reported a possible submerged vehicle.

They initially found a boat oar so, out of an abundance of caution, brought in a bigger Dive Rescue boat to run sonar and confirm nothing else was underwater, said Commander Jon Schwarder with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.

But a scan of the bottom showed otherwise. Divers went back down and, after digging through the mud, uncovered a vehicle, he said.

Sheriff’s deputies and divers used two tow trucks to pull the truck out of the river. That process took about an hour.

There was nothing inside of the pickup aside from several fish.

Schwarder told the Tri-City Herald that divers say it looks like the truck had been there a while based on the amount of mud.

It was identified as stolen out of Kennewick in 2016.

According to Schwarder, a fisherman was on the Columbia River on Sunday and noticed something suspicious on his boat’s sonar.

The fisherman went over it two or three times and believed it could be a vehicle about 8 feet deep, based on the picture displayed on the sonar screen, he said.

Authorities were alerted shortly before 11:30 a.m. Monday and activated a water rescue so divers could search the river near the Wye Park boat launch off the Columbia Park Trail, just west of North Columbia Center Boulevard.

Initially, Schwarder said they had no indication that there’s anybody in the vehicle or that it was even a vehicle.

Within a couple of hours, divers found the oar and brought in a bigger boat to get a better glimpse of the riverbed.

This story was originally published May 3, 2021 at 1:49 PM.