Power restored to Gisborne and East Coast after planned outage to repair lines

Powerlines. Photo / File

Power has been restored to Gisborne and the East Coast after a planned outage this morning so the final repairs to powerlines brought down by a fatal plane crash could be made.

Farmer Air pilot George Peter Anderson, 37, and loader driver, Robert Solouota, 49, both of Gisborne, died in the crash near Hangaroa on December 12.

The plane struck 110k powerlines, leaving thousands of homes in the Gisborne and East Coast areas without power for days.

Eastland Network turned off power at 6am this morning so about 20 specialists and contractors could make the final repairs to the lines.

It was fully restored just after 10am.

"Residents and business owners have been so patient, but this has been massively inconvenient for them," Eastland general manager Brent Stewart said.

"We wanted to not only make sure the power supply was secure, but also get it back up and running again as quickly as possible.

"Today's conditions have been ideal for installing the new conductors next to the live ones, which is the tricky part of the process that required the power to be off."

Eastland had expected it would take until 2pm today to make the final repairs to the lines.

"On behalf of Eastland Network and the crews, I'd like to thank this very special community of ours, which has rallied round in challenging circumstances," Stewart said.

The company offered its condolences to Anderson and Solouota's families.