This holiday season, a pair of plane passengers have something extra to be thankful for.

On Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022, a single-engine Mooney M20J carrying two passengers crashed directly into power lines and a high-voltage transmission tower near Montgomery Village, Md., north of Gaithersburg.

Around 5:00 p.m., the plane struck and then became entangled and trapped in the tower about 100 feet above ground after striking lines from an adjacent tower as the pilot approached Montgomery County Airpark for landing in dense fog.

It was a surreal scene that required extraordinary measures to rescue the passengers and restore power to the surrounding community.

Before any attempt could be made to stabilize the plane or reach the passengers, a crew from the local utility, Pepco, first had to shut off power to the live power lines to ensure the safety of rescue crews and the passengers.

Ben Armstrong, director of communications for the utility, explained to local reporters that the crew then had to ensure that there was no induced voltage, or “residual power.” They also had to take the added precaution of grounding and bonding the lines to ensure there was no possibility the line could become re-energized.

To do this, the crew ascended the tower and put clamps or cables onto the wires to make sure there was no static electricity or residual power, according to CNN

Once the power lines were completely bonded, the plane was secured to the tower and a 170-foot “cherry picker” crane outfitted with a platform was used to remove the two passengers. Both passengers survived and were taken to local hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. They were trapped in the plane for more than seven hours before their rescue.

After the passengers were safely removed, the plane was lowered to the ground for post-accident inspection.

As if all this weren’t enough, the disconnection of the power line also caused a major outage for the surrounding community. About 120,000 customers were without power the evening of the crash, but all affected customers had their power restored early the next morning, according to Pepco.

Schools in Montgomery County, Md., were also closed for one day so district officials could evaluate their electrical systems in the aftermath of the outage.