Police check out the scene where a pickup truck was driven off the south jetty and into the ship channel off Port Aransas today – Wednesday, July 1. (South Jetty staff photo © 2026 by Freda Greene.)
Police this morning (Wednesday, July 1) are planning to try to remove a pickup truck from the ship channel in Port Aransas after a man accidentally drove it into the water while doing donuts on the beach, police said.
After the vehicle hit the water, the man managed to get out and climb up onto the south jetty, said James Stokes, chief of the Port Aransas Police Department. The driver had few, if any, injuries, Stokes said.
The man then made his way to the area of Horace Caldwell Pier, where police found him and arrested him on a warrant, Stokes said. It couldn’t immediately be determined what the warrant was for.
No one else is believed to have been in the vehicle, the chief said.
The driver’s name wasn’t available, but Stokes said he was a 31-year-old San Antonio resident.
The Corpus Christi Police Department’s dive team has been dispatched as authorities plan to make efforts to get to the truck out of the channel.
The truck wasn’t visible as police gathered on the jetty near daybreak today. The water’s depth where the vehicle went down isn’t known.
This is a developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.