Power Line Crash

[llondel]

This went past on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/tristateweathe ... XChCJaMffl for those who partake, although I suspect as it's a public post it'll work for
anyone.

Multiple units remain on the scene of this small airplane that has crashed into power lines and is entangled approximately 100 off the ground with two occupants trapped inside. Crews are working on safely removing them from the airplane. Please avoid the area around Rothbury Drive & Goshen Road in Gaithersburg, Maryland. There is also a significant power outage in the area of 85,000+ people because of the damage to the main lines.

powerline1.jpg (32.98 KiB) Viewed 373 times

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

just over a mile from the threshold RWY 14 of Montgomery County Airpark, which is 24hr, uncontrolled.
Rwy 14 has VASIs. He should have been at 300 ft+ agl at that distance.
Engine failure short finals?
Out of fuel?

[PHXPhlyer]

A pilot and passenger are trapped after a small plane crashed into power lines in Maryland

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/27/us/maryl ... index.html

The pilot and passenger of a small plane were trapped after crashing into power lines in Maryland on Sunday, local officials said.

Rescue units were dispatched at 5:30 p.m. to reports of a small airplane that had flown into the power lines in Montgomery County, according to Pete Piringer, chief spokesperson for Montgomery County (MD) Fire & Rescue Service.

When units arrived on the scene, they found a small plane suspended about 100 feet in the air that had struck the tower. The pilot and passenger survived and are OK, Piringer said.

Roughly 85,000 customers are without power following the crash, according to the Pepco utility company, which provides electric service to roughly 894,000 customers in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas in Maryland.

“We have confirmed that a private plane came into contact with Pepco’s transmission lines in Montgomery County, resulting in an outage to approximately 85,000 customers.” Pepco tweeted. “We are assessing damage and working closely with Montgomery County fire and emergency services.”

“We are awaiting clearance to the scene before crews can begin work to stabilize the electric infrastructure and begin restoring service,” the company added.

The fire department is in communication with the pilot and passenger, and roads are closed as crews come up with a rescue plan, according to Piringer.

The plane is suspended about 100 feet in the air, officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration told CNN the plane is a single-engine Mooney that departed from Westchester County Airport in New York. The agency will investigate the incident along with the National Transportation Safety Board.

William Smouse, who lives about a mile from where the crash took place, told CNN affiliate WJLA on Sunday evening that he was going out to dinner with his son when he saw “two big flashes” and then multiple fire engines driving by.

“It’s unfortunate but I’m glad they are still up in there. We can see the light in the cockpit of the cell phone from the pilot, we did here that they called in to say they are OK,” Smouse said.

Smouse said the incident is “pretty scary” and that his house is located in an area where planes and jets often pass through.

“I think about it a lot, where they come in, and, literally, they are like 200 or 300 feet over us,” he said.

PP

[TheGreenAnger]

Good news...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/27/us/m ... index.html

A pilot and passenger who were stuck in a small plane for hours after it crashed Sunday into power lines in Montgomery County, Maryland, have been rescued, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Chief Scott Goldstein said early Monday morning.

Both were taken to the hospital with serious injuries, he said.

The rescue operation began at 5:30 p.m. when crews responded to reports of a small airplane that had flown into the power lines, according to Pete Piringer, chief spokesperson for Montgomery County (MD) Fire & Rescue Service.

When units arrived on the scene, they found a small plane suspended about 100 feet in the air that had struck the tower.

The pilot was identified by Maryland State Police as Patrick Merkle, 65 of Washington, DC. The passenger is Jan Williams, 66 of Louisiana, the state police said in a news release.

The fire department was in communication with the pilot and passenger during the rescue and nearby roads were closed, according to officials. The crash scene is about four miles northwest of the Montgomery County Airpark, state police said.

Rescuers had to wait for the tower to be “grounded or bonded” before they could get to the passengers, Goldstein said during a Sunday evening news conference.

That involved crews ascending to put clamps or cables onto the wires to make sure there was no static electricity or residual power, the chief said. The airplane also needed to be secured to the tower structure, he said. Foggy weather conditions in the area made matters more complicated, he added, by affecting visibility.

The plane “is not going to be stable until it’s chained and strapped in place,” Goldstein said. “Any movement, any accidental movement, could make the circumstance worse.”

Utility bucket trucks were seen near the plane late Sunday about six hours into the rescue operation, video from CNN affiliate WJLA showed.

Goldstein said the department regularly checked in with the plane occupants and moderated the use of their cell phones to conserve their batteries.

After the tower was safe to access and the plane was secured, crews worked “to bring the occupants of the plane out and down to the ground and transport (them) to area hospitals,” Goldstein said.

Roughly 120,000 customers were without power Sunday evening following the crash, but that number was down to less than 1,000 customers early Monday morning, according to the Pepco utility company, which provides electric service to roughly 894,000 customers in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas in Maryland. Montgomery County is just north of Washington, DC.

“We have confirmed that a private plane came into contact with Pepco’s transmission lines in Montgomery County,” Pepco tweeted. “We are assessing damage and working closely with Montgomery County fire and emergency services.”

“We are awaiting clearance to the scene before crews can begin work to stabilize the electric infrastructure and begin restoring service,” the company added.

Schools in Montgomery County will be closed Monday due to the widespread power outages, district officials said Sunday night.

The district earlier said that more than 40 schools in the Montgomery County Public Schools system and six central offices were without power, affecting services such as maintenance, buses and food service.

Two hospitals, MedStar Montgomery Medical Center and Holy Cross Hospital, were operating in limited capacity due to the power outage, Goldstein said.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and leadership from Maryland State Police are on scene, Goldstein said Sunday night. The FAA put an aircraft restriction in place during rescue efforts, state police said.

[TheGreenAnger]

The folks in the Mooney were very lucky to survive. Luckier than the people in a Robin that hit the wires on final to runway 22 at my home airfield some years back now. The wires are still there and have no warning balls on them to this day despite another incident some years later with the same wires/cables.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/187790

[PHXPhlyer]

Pilot, passenger rescued after small plane crashes into power lines in Montgomery County

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/pilot-passe ... ols-closed

Link has videos and stills.

Another couple who should be buying lottery tickets.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Juan Browne's (Blanco Lirio) take on the Mooney powerline tower crash.



PP

[barkingmad]

Is this technique going to be practised by owners of the new exciting battery powered light aircraft we've been promised by the politicos and the Climate Con brigades?

It's certainly a way of acquiring a quick and free charge, though I suspect the rectification to battery charging DC may prove problematical...

[Ex-Ascot]

They were incredibly, 1. Lucky, 2. Unlucky, 3. Stupid. Delete as required.

[PHXPhlyer]

Pilot's 911 call reveals moments after small plane crashed into Maryland power tower
"If we get some wind going, we’re goners,” the pilot, Patrick Merkle, 65, told 911 dispatchers in a phone call following the crash Sunday night. Both he and passenger Jan Williams, 66, of Louisiana, were rescued in the hours after the crash.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pi ... -rcna59316

The release of a 911 call that may have saved the lives of a pilot and his passenger after the small plane he was flying crashed into a high-voltage transmission tower in Maryland on Sunday night has revealed some of the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Pilot Patrick Merkle, 65, of Washington, D.C., and passenger Jan Williams, 66, of Louisiana, were rescued in the early hours of Monday morning after the crash outside Gaithersburg, coming away with serious, but non life-threatening injuries.

“I’ve flown into a tower to the northwest of Gaithersburg Airport. It’s one of the electrical towers," the pilot told dispatchers in a 911 call made public by the Montgomery County Police, according to NBC Washington. “Believe it or not, the aircraft is pinned in the tower,” he says.

“Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of wind, but if we get some wind going, we’re goners,” the pilot said, as he and his passenger remained trapped inside the plane.

At one point, the pilot described what happened in the moments leading up to the crash.

“Totally a visibility issue," he said, according to NBC Washington. "We were looking for the airport. I descended to the minimum altitude and, uh, then, apparently, I got down a little bit lower than I should have."

Eventually, first responders were able to rescue the pair.

“I just want to say: I’m really, really glad that both of the pilot and the passenger made it out safely," Laurel Manion, the Montgomery County Public Safety employee who answered the initial 911 call from the plane's pilot, told NBC Washington.

"That was the ultimate goal, and I hope you guys are doing good," Manion said in a message addressed to the pilot and passenger. "I wish you good health."

The Mooney M20J single-engine plane was initially reported down about 4 miles northwest of Montgomery County Airpark at about 5:40 p.m. Sunday, according to troopers and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Officials said at a news conference following the incident that the rescue was a complicated process, as any power line near the wreckage needed to be tested in person to ensure it wouldn’t harm first responders or the two people aboard the plane.

The pair was ultimately rescued by EMS personnel using two specialty trucks with cranes, state police said in a statement.

Both were rushed to trauma care following their rescue, Montgomery County Fire Department officials previously said at a news conference. One of them remained in the hospital as of Monday afternoon, officials said. It was not immediately clear what their status was as of early Wednesday morning.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board have said they are investigating the cause of the crash.

Officials said around 120,000 utility customers in the area were left without power at one point late Sunday and the outage prompted school closures on Monday.

A statement from Pepco, the Potomac Electric Power Co., said that crews responded to the crash site and worked with authorities to expedite the rescue and restoration of power, with power restored to all by 11:58 p.m. Sunday, according to Pepco region President Donna Cooper.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

NTSB says pilot that hit power lines was too low for miles

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/us/power ... index.html

(CNN)Investigators say the pilot of a private plane that crashed into power lines and cut electricity to 120,000 people was flying too low for miles.

In a just-released report, data accessed by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the pilot was below key minimum altitudes required to land in poor visibility at Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Before a small plane crashed into power lines and tower in Maryland, an air traffic controller warned pilot his altitude reading was too low

"The airplane descended as low as 475 feet" above sea level, before it slammed into a Pepco transmission tower, the agency said in its preliminary findings. The tower is 600 feet above sea level, the NTSB notes.
The crash, in dark mist on November 27, triggered a massive response of more than a hundred firefighters.
After he remained inside the mangled single-engine Mooney aircraft for eight hours, special equipment was used to rescue the pilot, 65-year-old Patrick Merkle and his female passenger. Both survived the crash with serious injuries.
The NTSB notes that Merkle said in media interviews that he thought his altimeter was malfunctioning. The NTSB now says it removed the altimeter for testing and found it "well within the test allowable error at all ranges."
In their report, investigators also say around the time Merkle began his approach to land, the pilot of another airplane ahead of him found the weather to be too poor and "requested a diversion to another airport."

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Press-on-itis, I think
Ex-A, 1 2 3, I think.