Helicopters patrol Illuminating Company transmission in throughout Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - If you see a helicopter flying close to overhead powerlines in Northeast Ohio, don’t be alarmed - it’s conducting routine patrols for the Illuminating Company.

These patrols started on Jan. 20, and are anticipated to take approximately five to six weeks to complete, weather permitting.

Storm or outage-related patrols could prolong completion.

The Chesapeake Bay Helicopters are mobilized to the Illuminating Company region to perform comprehensive visual inspections on all Illuminating Company 138kV lines.

Here is what the black and silver Hughes MD500 with red tail registration number N774CB looks like:

The Illuminating Company provided the following description of these patrols:

“A comprehensive visual inspection (CVI) is a slow, structure-by-structure, span-by-span inspection where the inspector onboard the helicopter gets a thorough look from top to bottom of each structure, associated hardware, and conductors of the transmission line(s). The helicopter will be moving very slowly along each of the transmission lines and will often be seen hovering while carrying out these inspections. It should be noted that the contractor has been authorized to patrol the transmission circuits in their entirety (i.e. “breaker-to-breaker”), so patrols on certain lines may therefore extend into the neighboring regions. The flight crew will provide information on their daily location to any local airports when in their airspace.”

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