It's routine for utilities to use helicopters to fly and inspect power lines, especially out away from cities. They fly the one that goes across one end of my yard, on a regular basis. Once or twice a year.
They did a double-take a couple of years ago when a wind storm had taken down multiple trees in the woods behind me, and had one tree fall into the right-of-way of the transmission line. It did not contact the wires, which is a credit to having a required 150 foot wide clearance of trees where the line passes through.
They are starting to use drones to fly the lines, collecting video inspections rather than having manned aircraft doing so. I expect that trend to continue.
When they do ‘hands on’ they are still piloted, bad enough they got a guy in contact with them and worse use tools that hold on the wire. That creates another rotation point for the helo.