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The 66-year-old man and woman were rescued after being stranded 100 feet up for seven hours with serious injuries from that plane that crashed into the power tower in Montgomery County, Maryland on Sunday, Nov. 27 after departing from Westchester late in the afternoon.
The pilot, Patrick Merkle, age 66, of Washington DC, and his passenger, Janet Williams, age 66, of Marrero, LA, had apparently departed from Westchester County Airport in New York, in a Mooney Mike 20P single-engine plane, before crashing in Gaithersburg around 6:45 p.m., officials said.
Social media and online records show that Merkle is an attorney with roots in Greenwich.
Nearly 85,000 people were without power for about six hours, PEPCO records show.
Merkle and Williams were rescued around 1 a.m., using two specialty crane/boom trucks. The area of Goshen Road and Rothbury Drive remains closed while efforts to remove the plane continue.
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