Hundreds of residents left without power after aircraft takes out power line

More than 600 households were left without power for over five hours this afternoon when a small aircraft took out a power line in Hinderclay.

The aircraft, which is privately owned, took out the line as it attempted to land on an airfield near Hinderclay Road, just before 1:00pm today.

In total, 629 residents - who were described as being “very angry” - were left without power until early evening, as power line workers spent the afternoon repairing the damage.

A resident whose home was affected by the incident, said: “Everything in my garage went out, no telephones or anything - the whole set up around here was shutdown.”

The man, who chose to remain anonymous, added: “There’s too many planes flying around here - a lot of people were very angry about it.”

A spokesperson for Suffolk Police said: “We received a call at 13:02 that a small aircraft had hit a cable. There were no injuries.”

UK Power, who are the network operators for the area, had homes back up and running within six hours of the accident.

A spokeswoman for UK Power Networks said: “A total of 629 customers were without power after one of our overhead cables was damaged by a third party. Power was returned in stages. The line was repaired and the final customers were back on by 5:20pm.”