Three years ago today, on November 27, 2022, Montgomery County residents witnessed one of the most dramatic and widely watched rescue operations in recent local history. A small plane crashed into a power line tower near Goshen Road and Rothbury Drive in the Gaithersburg and Montgomery Village area, leaving two people suspended more than one hundred feet above the ground for hours as crews worked through the night to reach them.
Shortly before 6 p.m. that evening, a Mooney Mike 20P aircraft struck a Pepco transmission tower roughly four miles northwest of the Montgomery County Airpark. The plane became wedged in the metal structure, entangled in live power lines, and dangled at a precarious angle. The crash cut electricity to more than one hundred thousand Pepco customers across the region and forced an immediate shutdown of nearby roads.
Maryland State Police identified the pilot as Patrick Merkle, 65, of Washington, D.C., and the passenger as Jan Williams, 66, of Louisiana. Both survived the initial impact but remained trapped inside the damaged plane for approximately seven hours while emergency teams developed a plan to safely reach them. Portions of Merkle’s 9 1 1 call were later released and captured the tense moments after impact, including his description of being pinned in the tower and unsure how long the aircraft would hold.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services (MCFRS) executed a complex rescue effort involving large crane and boom trucks, meticulous grounding of electrical lines, and coordination with Pepco crews. Around 12:30 a.m. on November 28, rescuers reached the aircraft and brought both occupants to safety without further incident. The plane was removed from the tower several hours later.
Both Merkle and Williams were transported to the hospital with serious injuries. The incident also forced Montgomery County Public Schools and Montgomery College to close on November 28 due to widespread outages.
Pepco crews worked throughout the night to restore service and later confirmed that all affected customers had power back by early Monday morning. In a statement at the time, the utility thanked local first responders for their coordination throughout the rescue.
According to The Washington Post, Merkle was flying toward the Montgomery County Airpark in poor visibility and below the required minimum altitudes, repeatedly struggling to follow air traffic control instructions and making incorrect turns as he approached the airport. According to the NTSB’s preliminary report, he reached multiple waypoints hundreds of feet too low before ultimately crashing into a power line tower.