Military blimp worth $1.9 billion crashes in Pennsylvania

A RUNAWAY military blimp worth over a $1.9 billion has crashed near a school in Pennsylvania after it broke loose from a base in Maryland and flew 240km.

An unmanned Army surveillance blimp floats through the air while dragging a tether line south of Millville, Pa., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015. The bulbous, 240-foot helium-filled blimp came down near Muncy, a small town about 80 miles north of Harrisburg. The North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado said the blimp detached from its station at the military's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. (Jimmy May/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP)

A MILITARY surveillance blimp worth more than $1.9 billion crash-landed in central Pennsylvania on Wednesday just hours after it broke loose from its tether in Maryland.

The crash took out power to a nearby school.

The unmanned aircraft, one of two JLENS, or ‘Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defence Elevated Netted Sensor Systems’ that have been surveying the US east coast, came detached around noon (Maryland time) while hovering at an altitude of nearly 5000m, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Students at Columbia-Montour Area Vocational-Technical School in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania tweeted that they saw the blimp go down near the school.

“It knocked out the power. When we went outside it was going down on the other side of the building,” tweeted Fisher P. Creasy, a student who posted a video of the blimp around 1:30pm.

“Omg literally crying that a ‘lost’ blimp crashed into our power source and gave us a power outage,” wrote Darian Brenner.

Sam Tomassini tweeted, “I wish this blimp would have crashed tomorrow morning so my classes tomorrow would have been cancelled.”

A pair of F-16 fighter jets from the New Jersey National Guard base in Atlantic City were said to be flying alongside the 74m long, helium-filled blimp and were monitoring its flight path, authorities said.

The North American Aeropsace Defense Command had also been working with the Federal Aviation Administration “to ensure air traffic safety,” a spokesman said.

The blimp, which belongs to NORAD, had been moored at Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground before becoming detached.

An unmanned Army surveillance blimp broke from its tether in Maryland. It was followed by defence vehicles and planes before crashing in Pennsylvania. Picture: Jimmy May / Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP

It travelled around 240km before crashing.

The blimp was trailing 2000m of tether while it was loose, officials said.

NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek told The Baltimore Sun that the agency is working with other agencies “to address the safe recovery of the aerostat.”

Earlier, authorities had urged anyone who saw the aircraft to call police and keep a safe distance.

The JLENS blimps have been spotted over Baltimore on a regular basis since being launched in December.

Using specialised radar, they have the ability to survey land up to 547km in any direction and can be used to keep tabs on both land and sea travel.

Authorities say the system is ultimately intended to seek out and stop enemy fire in the form of an incoming cruise missile or other threat.

NORAD plans on using the blimps, which cost around $1.9 billion apiece, over the course of the next three years to test their effectiveness.

The blimp was a strange sight in the skies above Maryland and Pennsylvania before it crashed. Picture: Jimmy May / Bloomsburg Press Enterprise via AP

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.