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

CNN  — 

Rescue operations are underway successful Maryland aft the aviator and rider of a tiny level became trapped aft crashing into powerfulness lines Sunday, section officials said.

Rescue units were dispatched astatine 5:30 p.m. to reports of a tiny airplane that had flown into the powerfulness lines successful Montgomery County, according to Pete Piringer, main spokesperson for Montgomery County (MD) Fire & Rescue Service.

When units arrived connected the scene, they recovered a tiny level suspended astir 100 feet successful the aerial that had struck the tower. The aviator and rider survived and are OK, Piringer said.

The occurrence section is successful connection with the aviator and passenger, and roads are closed arsenic crews travel up with a rescue plan, according to Piringer.

There is “no different mode to find if it’s harmless to entree the operation until it is grounded oregon bonded,” Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Chief Scott Goldstein said during a Sunday evening quality conference.

This involves crews ascending to enactment clamps oregon cables onto the wires to marque definite determination is nary static energy oregon residual power, the main said. The airplane indispensable besides beryllium secured to the operation structure, helium said. Foggy upwind conditions successful the country are making matters much complicated, helium added, by affecting visibility.

The level “is not going to beryllium unchangeable until it’s chained and strapped successful place,” Goldstein said. “Any movement, immoderate accidental movement, could marque the condition worse.”

Goldstein said the section is regularly checking successful with the level occupants and moderating the usage of their compartment phones to conserve their batteries.

After the operation is harmless to entree and the level is secured, crews “will enactment to bring the occupants of the level retired and down to the crushed and transport (them) to country hospitals,” Goldstein said.

Roughly 120,000 customers are without powerfulness pursuing the crash, according to the Pepco inferior company, which provides electrical work to astir 894,000 customers successful Washington, DC, and surrounding areas successful Maryland. Montgomery County is conscionable northbound of Washington, DC.

“We person confirmed that a backstage level came into interaction with Pepco’s transmission lines successful Montgomery County,” Pepco tweeted. “We are assessing harm and moving intimately with Montgomery County occurrence and exigency services.”

“We are awaiting clearance to the country earlier crews tin statesman enactment to stabilize the electrical infrastructure and statesman restoring service,” the institution added.

More than 40 schools successful the Montgomery County Public Schools strategy and six cardinal offices are presently without power, affecting services specified arsenic maintenance, buses and nutrient service, the territory said successful a message connected its website. School officials are monitoring the situation, the connection said.

Resources from Pepco’s contractor person arrived astatine the country and a section institution has sent a ample crane to assistance with the operation, Goldstein said.

Various agencies were expected to get astatine the country astir 9:30 p.m., the main said, including the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and the Montgomery County Police Department.

“We are taking measured and hazard balanced steps to attack this activity,” Goldstein said.

The Federal Aviation Administration told CNN the level is simply a single-engine Mooney that departed from Westchester County Airport successful New York. The bureau volition analyse the incidental on with the National Transportation Safety Board.

William Smouse, who lives astir a mile from wherever the clang took place, told CNN affiliate WJLA connected Sunday evening that helium was going retired to meal with his lad erstwhile helium saw “two large flashes” and past aggregate occurrence engines driving by.

“It’s unfortunate but I’m gladsome they are inactive up successful there. We tin spot the airy successful the cockpit of the compartment telephone from the pilot, we did present that they called successful to accidental they are OK,” Smouse said.

Smouse said the incidental is “pretty scary” and that his location is located successful an country wherever planes and jets often walk through.

“I deliberation astir it a lot, wherever they travel in, and, literally, they are similar 200 oregon 300 feet implicit us,” helium said.