The loose JLENS blimp had been in the air over Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and caused power outages before it came down, Columbia County Department of Public Safety Director Fred Hunsinger said. The NORAD blimp had a tether line in tow that dragged along the ground and took out power lines along its wayward journey.
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The military blimp that finally touched down in Pennsylvania Wednesday after breaking from its moorings is part of a $2.7 billion test program known as JLENS, which the Pentagon has developed to detect low-flying drones and cruise missiles. Emergency personnel are tracking the blimp which was moving toward Pennsylvania. The tethers, made of Vectran (a substance similar to kevlar), are 1 1/8 inches thick, and are created to withstand 100 mile-per-hour winds. Neither the mayor nor the police chief there returned phone calls for comment, probably because they were outside staring at JLENS or watching its cable tear up power lines up and down Columbia County.
A local power company reported as many as 20,000 customers lost power. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is aware of the loose blimp, and two F-16 fighter jets from Atlantic City Air National Guard Base are monitoring it.
First, the tail portion of the blimp detached and came to the ground “with no reports of other damage or casualties”, Navy Captain Scott Miller said.
The Army’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) aerostat had somehow broke away from its tether at the Aberdeen Proving Ground just before 12:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Electricity was restored to most people within a few hours. It’s one of two that were in place and flying at about 10,000 feet over the military’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland north of Baltimore to provide surveillance of the greater Washington, D.C. It eventually crashed in Montour County, though it caused power outages as it descended in the Keystone State. “The program had a previous accident with another blimp that was destroyed due to bad weather, so a second incident would seem to suggest that “system reliability” may be wee bit of a problem”.
“Anyone who sees the aerostat is advised to contact 911 immediately”, spokeswoman Heather Roelker said.
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A Raytheon spokesperson told me this: “NORAD officials continue to work closely with interagency partners to address the situation”.
