Wind turbine blade snaps and falls off in Plymouth

BOURNE, Mass. — Stunning video from Buzzards Bay in Plymouth shows a broken wind turbine after one of the blades became detached on Friday afternoon.

The blade fell into a cranberry bog below the turbine.

The turbine, part of the Future Generation Wind farm established in 2013, went into a fail-safe mode after the blade detached, according to the maintenance company.

Neighbor David Daylor lives a couple hundred feet from the scene.

He told Boston 25 his home shook around 12:30, and he rushed out to the cranberry bog.

Daylor caught the scene first on his phone.

“That’s safe,” he said jokingly on his phone, looking at the blade. “That’s real safe... We were told these were very safe. I’m not feeling so safe!”

He told Boston 25 Friday, “From the inception of this project, this was our concern — safety.”

Another neighbor, Kerry Costello, lives steps away from the cranberry bog.

She claims she noticed the wind turbine made a “grinding” noise Thursday night.

“I had no idea what it was,” she remembered. “I just heard an explosion, like ‘boom.’ I grabbed my keys. I grabbed my dog and went running out the door.”

She added, “I’m scared to death of this now, I mean, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep at night knowing that can happen

The Plymouth Fire Department said that the owner of the turbines and their crews have been monitoring the area and are leading the cleanup efforts.

The company of the wind turbine, RWE, provided the following statement:

“On the afternoon of November 7, a blade separated from a turbine at RWE’s Future Generation Wind project in Plymouth, Mass. There were no injuries and the facility has been secured. The project has been shut down as a precaution and we have started an exhaustive root cause analysis of this incident. At RWE, the safety of our people, neighbors and the communities where we operate is always our top priority." —  RWE