Search Could End in Mysterious Van Plunge

Divers might not resume their search for a man who might have been in a minivan that plunged into the Connecticut River on Sunday morning.

The mystery for the missing driver started around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday when East Hartford Police received a call from a man reporting that a vehicle had gone in the river in the area of East River Drive.

The caller was intoxicated and had been involved in some type of dispute with the van's driver before it plunged into the water, police said.

Dive teams searched for the driver, a man in his 50s, who they believed was submerged inside the van.

However, when firefighters lifted the minivan out of the water around 10 a.m., there was no body was inside, so divers used sonar to continue the recovery effort.

"I don't think we're going to search," Asst. Fire Chief William Perez told the Hartford Courant on Monday morning. "If he's in the water, it's a recovery at this point."

Police are questioning the man who called 911. They think he had been a passenger in the van and man ran to the nearby Sheraton Hotel to call 911, police said.

Authorities initially thought a 4-year-old child might have been in the minivan, but the child was never in the vehicle and has been accounted for.

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