Searchers are taking to the air in hopes of finding Michael Collins, who has been missing since Tuesday evening when the dump truck he was driving went into the Mississippi River while moving limestone on the Florida Marine Transport property off Warrenton Road.

“We’ve had our boats in the water since daybreak,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said Friday morning. “Yesterday, I went up in the Mississippi Highway Patrol’s helicopter, and a private citizen used his own plane and fuel to fly along the river as far as Waterproof, La.”

Pace said he will be flying the length of the river later Friday with another private citizen “for as long as the fuel and the weather will allow.”

He said agents and boats with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks are assisting his department, adding boats from Claiborne County and wildlife agents in river counties south of Warren County are also looking for Collins.

“Alligator season begins at noon, and we’ll have deputies and wildlife agents at all the public boat launches telling people about the missing person and asking them to be on the lookout while the are on the water.

Witnesses said Collins, 22, a driver for Riverside Construction Co., was in the process of backing up to barges moored on the river at the Florida Marine property to get more limestone when the truck began moving back and went into the river. The truck stopped about 45 to 50 feet under the barges in about 45 feet of water.

Although witnesses said he was in the truck as it entered the water, commercial divers diving on the truck did not find him in the truck and a search under the barges was unsuccessful.