By DEBRA ALFARONE PIX11.com

9:24 p.m. EDT, August 1, 2011
NEW YORK (WPIX)—
Authorities are trying to determine why it took five hours for Port Authority and NJ Transit officials to locate a bus and its driver that went missing in action last Thursday. When the bus was finally located, workers found the bus driver, identified as Thomas Truex, slumped over the wheel dead.

Cops say it was around 10:30 a.m. Thursday when Truex, a 26-year bus driver from Edison, NJ, dropped off his last passengers at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He was supposed to drop the bus off in New Jersey at a Meadowlands garage, officials said.

Five hours later, NJ Transit officials started to get worried after not hearing back from the driver and did not have a status update on the bus. It prompted them to start making calls.

At the same time, the Port Authority called NJ Transit to say they spotted an idling bus that wasn't where it was supposed to be. A supervisor went and found Truex dead inside the bus at about 3 p.m.

The question now is, why did it take five hours for the Port Authority and NJ Transit to notice something was wrong.

"It exposes another breach in the system that should be addressed," said Deputy Security Director For Counterterrorism Nicholas Casale. "You know they have the campaign 'see something, say something', well you know that's what they're asking out of the people, well what are we asking out of the Port Authority the MTA and law enforcement?"

A NJ Transit spokesperson says they're investigating the incident while a Port Authority spokesperson says this incident may be exposing cracks in the communication between the two agencies.

Cops say Truex's death isn't considered suspicious, though they haven't figured out why he died just yet.

Peter Thorne contributed to this report.