A wind turbine blade crashed into a Plymouth cranberry bog after detaching from a 300-foot-tall turbine, officials said.
The rare mechanical failure last week startled nearby residents but caused no injuries, according to Plymouth Fire Chief Neil Foley.
The incident occurred just before 2 p.m. when a neighbor called emergency services to report that one of the three blades on a turbine near 810 Head of the Bay Road was suddenly missing. When Plymouth firefighters arrived, they found the nearly 100-foot-long fiberglass blade lying several hundred feet from the base of the tower, submerged in the cranberry bog.
Officials called the area “remote,” stating in a release that “no homes or occupied buildings were in the immediate vicinity of the fall.”
“It’s not every day a turbine blade ends up in a cranberry bog,” Chief Foley said. “We were fortunate that this site is in a remote area, well away from homes.”
Firefighters said there was no danger to the public.
The maintenance company responsible for the wind turbine responded shortly after to conduct inspections. The company determined the turbine automatically entered a “fail-safe mode” and shut down after the blade detached.
The surrounding area remains closed to the public. The maintenance company has since begun inspecting the tower and arranging for the area to be cleaned up.
The Plymouth Fire Department also notified the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the town’s Inspectional Services Department, which will oversee the follow-up investigation.
The cause of the failure remains under review.
Chief Foley credited the turbine’s fail-safe design and its rural location for preventing what could have been a much more serious situation.
“Thankfully, the system worked as designed,” Foley said. “Now it’s about figuring out why it failed and making sure the cleanup is done safely.”
Sarah Mesdjian can be reached at sarah.mesdjian@globe.com. Follow her on X @sarahs_journal.