PG&E: No evidence found of plane flying into power line near Sonoma

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews found no evidence that a reported plane hit power lines Sunday afternoon, triggering an outage near Sonoma, despite calls to emergency personnel in the region.

At about 1:40 p.m., a caller to REDCOM, Sonoma County’s fire and medical dispatch, reported that a plane had struck lines in the 21700 block of Hyde Road, just east of the Sonoma Skypark airport.

A few minutes before the reported call, power was knocked out to about 32 customers in the same area.

PG&E and the Schell Vista Fire Department, among other agencies, responded to the site. They found about two spans of wire down in between three power poles along Hyde Road.

Workers removed the old power line, put up a new one and restored power to all customers by 7:15 p.m. Sunday, P&GE spokesperson Fiona Chan said.

Witnesses told the troubleshooters that they saw a low-flying plane that had possibly touched the lines. However, the workers, “did not find debris or anything that confirmed that a plane contacted our lines,” Chan said.

PG&E listed the cause of the outage as an equipment failure.

A representative with the Schell Vista Fire Department could not be reached for comment.

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @madi.smals.