Baltimore bridge collapse: Crane tied to CIA Cold War mission arrives for cleanup

A powerful floating crane that played a role in what the CIA says was one of the "greatest intelligence coups of the Cold War" has arrived at the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse site in Baltimore to start removing debris. 

The Chesapeake 1000, which Unified Command tells Fox News Digital can "carry up to 1,000 tons," arrived late last night at the wreckage site in the Patapsco River, where the remains of four construction workers are still missing following Tuesday’s collapse. 

The crane originally was built as the Sun 800 in 1972 to help construct the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a deep-sea vessel used by the CIA in a secret mission called "Project AZORIAN" to recover a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank in the Pacific Ocean during the Cold War, according to the Engineering News-Record. 

It later had its capacity increased from 800 to 1,000 tons and was bought by New Jersey-based Donjon Marine Co. Inc. in 1993, which confirmed the details of the report to Fox News Digital on Friday.