Everyone’s lost their electricity for a little while, but usually it’s because of something mundane — routine maintenance, a lightning strike, an electrocuted squirrel. The residents of Mukilteo, Washington have a more dramatic story, which I might not believe if there weren’t video evidence.
Simon Li uploaded the footage to YouTube, which shows a plane torpedoing through the sky and hitting a power line, which ignites the fuel and causes a massive fireball. According to Gizmodo, it managed to knock out power for 9,000 local residents.
It looks way worse than it actually was. First, the single-engine plane — which lost power shortly after taking off — is tiny.
Plane down no injuries pic.twitter.com/PEYzmooKLk
— Mukilteo Police Dept (@MukilteoPolice) May 2, 2017
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Second, the pilot managed to steer the falling plane onto an empty street, where they winged (wink) a couple of parked cars before coming to a stop. Both pilot and passenger walked away unharmed and there are no injuries reported, though the fireball did send a few people running for cover.
It’s great that no one was seriously hurt, but still — that’s a hell of a story to explain how you lost your internet.
Update May 4: This post previously stated Mukilteo was in Oregon, which is not the case, of course. We’ve updated the post to reflect its actual location: Washington.
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