Investigation underway after blade breaks off wind turbine in Plymouth

Investigators are looking to pinpoint what caused a huge wind turbine blade to break off in Plymouth and experts say incidents like this are rare but not unheard of. A broken blade and a lot of questions for those living near the wind turbines after a blade fell some 300 feet into a nearby Cranberry bog on Friday. Northeastern University professor Nathan Post used to test turbines and after reviewing the footage says he thinks he can tell what happened. “It appears from the footage that the blade detached at the root where the pitch bearing is,” he said. “It’s something that the wind plant is going to of course do a root cause analysis on and figure on what went wrong here.” Post says most turbines are inspected every six months to a year. The company that owns it is now working on a clean-up plan. The incidents comes less than two years after a wind blade break on Martha’s Vineyard left beaches littered with debris. “There certainly is impact here and the industry recognizes that when here’s large failures like that it makes everyone question what’s happening,” he said. “Now the good thing about wind energy is many of the turbines are in relatively rural areas.” Post said he expects it will take until spring to get a new blade brought to the area and installed.