Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said the plane was secured to the tower at 12:16 a.m. local time and the first passenger was removed from the plane at 12:25 a.m. The second passenger got off at 12:36 am. Goldstein did not say which of the people, identified by police in Maryland as pilot Patrick Merkle, 65, of Washington, D.C., and passenger Janet Williams, 66, of Marrero, La., bailed out of the plane first which was stuck about 30 meters above the ground. He said both occupants suffered “serious injuries” from the crash and that hypothermia was also an issue. Both were taken to local trauma centers with non-life-threatening injuries, Goldstein said. First responders work to rescue the plane’s passengers early Monday in Montgomery Village, a suburb north of Gaithersburg, Md. (Tom Brenner/The Associated Press) The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the single-engine plane, which had departed from White Plains, New York, crashed into a power tower near the Montgomery County Airport in Gaithersburg around 5:40 Sunday afternoon. Pete Piringer, chief spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, said on Twitter that the occupants were not injured and that rescuers had made contact with them. He had said at one point in a video message that there were three people on the plane but later clarified that there were two.
Power outages, shutdowns occur
Goldstein said utility contractors first had to work to ground the high-voltage wires to make it safe for rescuers to work. Fire crews had planned to use bucket trucks or a crane to stabilize the plane by chaining or tying it to the tower. The FAA identified the plane as a Mooney M20J. ICYMI pic.twitter.com/sY3O0Eq2tG —@mcfrsPIO The video showed a small white plane nose-mounted near a power tower. Live video from a local television station showed the plane stuck to the transmission tower after 8 p.m. Utility company Pepco had reported that about 120,000 customers were without power in Montgomery County. At the time of the rescue, most of the power had been restored in the county outside the crash site. Goldstein said the next steps were to secure the plane, remove it, and then the power cables can be reconnected and reconnected. Spectators watch as the scene unfolds Sunday night in Montgomery Village. (Tom Brenner/The Associated Press) Piringer said Montgomery County Schools announced that schools would be closed Monday. The crash occurred in Gaithersburg, a town of 69,000 about 25 miles northwest of Washington, DC The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate what happened.
