Mystery helicopter spooks area residents
Steve Fogarty | The Chronicle-Telegram
NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Area residents seem to have been nervously scanning the skies Tuesday afternoon, fearful they were being spied on by a “black ops” helicopter.
One of them, Kurt Wimmer, called police to report the mysterious aircraft that was painted black and had orange vertical stripes on its tail hovering over homes and properties along Chestnut Ridge Road, where it stirred up mini-whirlwinds of leaves, tree branches and other debris.
“At times it was only about 60 feet off the ground. That’s what made it so scary. It kept going around and up and down.”
Wimmer said he could clearly see a pair of black-helmeted occupants.
“They were looking right at me. It was so close to the house at times, it was barely over the power lines,” said Wimmer. “Cars in the street stopped to watch it, too.”
The Chestnut Ridge Road resident, a retired Alltel technician, may have had extra cause to be uneasy.
It turns out that the helicopter was doing aerial surveillance of power lines, poles and other equipment for Ohio Edison.
And Wimmer just happens to have an injunction against the utility arising from a legal flap over the extent of tree-trimming done on his property to clear branches away from power lines.
“I thought maybe it was them coming back to harass me."
Ellen Raines, and Ohio Edison spokeswoman in the company’s Akron offices, said any squabbling will remain in court.
“That’s not how we operate … we’d never harass anyone with a helicopter,” Raines said. “We’re trying to maintain reliable service for people.”
Aerial surveillance is done periodically in all communities served by Ohio Edison, particularly on high voltage transmission lines that carry heavy loads of electricity.
“Lines can be hit by lightning and there’s no evidence of it until an outage occurs,” Raines said. “This is the most cost-effective way to take a look at high voltage lines rather than from the ground, or by climbing a pole, or being in a bucket truck.”
Raines said the helicopters are also used to see where the utility has to make repairs.
“They can catch broken cross-arms, missing insulators and wires that need to be replaced.”
Contact Steve Fogarty at 329-7146 or sfogarty@chroniclet.com
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Filed by Steve Fogarty | The Chronicle-Telegram July 17th, 2008 in Local and State. Popularity: 11% |
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Comments
Comment from
a citizen
July 17, 2008, 8:28 am
Wouldn’t you think that Ohio Edison would have informed it’s customers of this ahead of time in order to eliminate any concerns??? I saw this helicopter on Tues and wondered myself what it was for, although it wasn’t hovering over the top of my property either. With the way the world is today maybe the next time they should put a little blurb in the bills about the helicopter….DUH!
Comment from
George
July 17, 2008, 9:00 am
They did notify people; it was in the news, I think even on this site.
Comment from
Big T
July 17, 2008, 12:00 pm
These people all fail at situational awareness.
OE has been doing the line checks for years now. They do it aleast twice a year. It’s no fricken mystery who it is.
Black OPs!!?!? these people need to loosen their tinfoil hats….
Comment from
Jack Miller
July 17, 2008, 2:30 pm
Living very close to the White Sands Missile Range and its base, Holman AFB, and with NASA using the former, I get to witness many strange (and awesome) sights in the skies. Even got to see a black helicopter commonly referred to as a LOACH. Blackhawk Industries uses a few black helicopters. The net, and hence the world, especially Americans, are full of people who think they are being spied on, beamed with something or harassed by black helicopters. If that’s what makes them fulfilled in their paranoid lives, more power to them. If any of those folks read this, then you should move down here. Pump your paranoia up to the next level and gain the envy of other conspiracy theorists! Move in next door to me. I could have fun with you.
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