plane

Dramatic Rescue: Small Plane Crashes Into Live High-Power Lines

Rescue crews worked side-by-side with power company workers to effect the dramatic rescue of two trapped plane passengers. The private aircraft managed to fly straight into a high voltage tower and become entangled in the wires, which remained electrified. Turning off the power isn’t as easy as you would think.

Plane tangled in high tension wires

The crash of a private plane sparked a major power outage across Montgomery County, Maryland on Sunday evening. The subsequent rescue of Patrick Merkle, 65, of D.C., and his passenger, Jan Williams, 66, of Louisiana, can only be described as dramatic.

Conditions were reported as “foggy,” indicating the pilot was operating by instrument only. Apparently he didn’t see the high voltage power lines, or the tower they were attached to, before he slammed into it.

Utility company Pepco couldn’t just throw a big set of breakers to kill the power to the crash site. That means it was hours before rescue crews could extract the two victims.

By Monday morning, November 28, they were recovering from crash trauma and exposure at a local hospital. The un-heated plane dangled in the wires most of the night in temperatures hovering around 50 degrees.

Shortly after the crash happened around 5:30 p.m., pepco workers shut off power to that leg of the high voltage system and cut electric service to around 85,000 residents.

The lights didn’t come back on until 1:30 a.m. That was only half an hour after the passengers had finally been lowered from the plane to the ground, using utility company “cherry picker” basket cranes.

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En-route to Gaithersburg

According to Maryland State Police, “the plane departed the Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, on its way to Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg.” Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA “are trying to figure out what happened.” They can say that there’s “no sign of criminal activity.

Before crews could get anywhere near the aircraft or its passengers, they had to “first ground any residual electricity remaining in the tower and the surrounding crash area.

Flipping the switch doesn’t make the electrons go away, just stop flowing. The “static” electricity in one of those high tension wires can give you a fatal carpet shock. Crews had to manually climb up to the un-powered lines, attach special clamps, and ground the residual charge to get rid of it.

Rescuers managed to make contact with the victims via cell phone. They were able to assure the occupants that help was on the way but also had to limit communication to save the cell batteries. Once the power was dissipated, the next move was to secure the plane itself. They didn’t want it to come crashing down as paramedics climbed into it. By midnight, that task was accomplished.

The crash happened near Montgomery Village. Because of the power outage, local children got the day off school. Parents got a note advising “staff need to assess all buildings for their safety and other systems readiness such as heat, water and network connectivity; this work will be done throughout the day.

They or their insurer will probably send the bill for it to Metal Forming and Coining Corporation. Victim pilot Merkle is their president and the company owns the plane.

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