Small plane crashes into transmission tower in Maryland

A small plane crashed into a transmission tower in Maryland on Sunday, knocking out electricity to roughly 117,000 customers as rescuers raced to extricate the two people on board who were trapped about 100 feet above the ground, the authorities said. The pilot, Patrick Merkle, 65, of Washington, and the passenger, Jan Williams, 66, of Louisiana, did not appear to be seriously injured, Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, said on Sunday. He said the authorities had been in contact with the two people as the aircraft dangled in the power lines and tower. Chief Scott Goldstein, of the county fire and rescue service, said in a news conference on Sunday night that officials had told the pilot and the passenger to conserve battery life on their phones in order to communicate with rescuers. Piringer said the pilot and passenger had been flying to Montgomery County Airpark, an airport near Gaithersburg, Md., about 40 miles west of Baltimore. The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane, a single-engine Mooney M20J, had departed from Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., on Sunday. It remained unclear what led to the crash, which happened in Montgomery Village, Md., around 5:40 p.m. and made for unusual photos by residents and officials on social media. The images and videos showed the plane entangled in power lines and seemingly suspended in the air in a snarled mess of metal.<br/>