230KV power line damage

[bbqcook]

The last big job we did about a month before I retired. It was amazing to me, the amount of damage that occured from this incident.
This is a 230,000 Volt Line, H frame with 36' crossarms, poles from 60' to 85' long and 1272 ACSR 36/7 [Aluminun conductor with steel reinforcment], conductor[wire] 36 strands of Aluminum over 7 strands of Steel. The incident took out 2 miles of line. 1 mile in each direction of impact.
I hope the pics work. pic 68 is what the line is supposed to look like.
It was hit by a National Guard Apache helicopter. It was said that they were flying about 45 mph, but I don't think that at that speed it would have done so much damage. My guess is that they were flying low over the Cape Fear River just below tree top level, moving along a lot faster than 45mph not payiing attention because they knew the line was there. They had just flown that course the day before, from what I was told. When they caught the wire it stretched as far as it could and flipped the chopper over and the wire recoiled with such energy that it just tore 2 miles of line to the ground. The wire never broke or cut into.
http://www.wral.com/news/4490623/detail.html

The pics were to big, I will try to resize and try again
Had to do it like this, all at once, watch the slide show

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...AZsWzNk5cM2LjY

An amazing amount of damage. Your statement that it took out 2 miles of line in each direction of impact gives me a clue. I am going to guess that the wires were hit by an airplane. Possibly a crop dusting type plane.