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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat
    Troy's Avatar
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    Cable Car Accident - Italy

    My wife is always a little anxious when I suggest a ride in one, safe as houses I keep telling her....

    Italy cable car fall: Eight dead after accident near Lake Maggiore

    At least eight people have been killed after a cable car fell near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, according to rescuers and news reports. Local emergency services said the accident happened on a service transporting passengers from the resort town of Stresa in the Piedmont region.




    Alpine rescue and air helicopter emergency services responded to the serious accident about midday Sunday. Officials say two children were taken from the scene to a Turin hospital. An image posted on social media by emergency services showed the wreckage of the cable car lying in a wooded area.




    "It is a very serious accident," Walter Milan, a spokesman for the national alpine rescue service told RaiNews24 television, adding the vehicle was left "crumpled" after falling from a high height. The website for the Stresa-Alpine-Mottarone cable car said it usually takes 20 minutes to transport passengers 1,491m (4,900ft) above sea level.



    Local reports suggest the rope carrying it may have failed about 300m from the top of the mountain station.
    Italian news agency Ansa said the cable car had been carrying 11 people before the accident. The cable car had recently reopened following the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, Reuters reported.

    Italy cable car fall: Eight dead after accident near Lake Maggiore - BBC News

    Several media reports out in European papers and Reuters with the latest suggesting 9 killed and two children surviving and taken to Turin hospital.

    The cable car is on the West side of Lake Maggiore, which is north of, and nearly half way between, Milan and Turin.


    Not sure of the reason(s) for the accident yet...

  2. #2
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    Death toll up to 13 now as well as the two children injured.

    Not sure which type of cable car it is, has gondola able to accommodate up to 40 people. Early reports suggest the cable failed.

    I thought they travelled on three cables but I guess it depends which type.

    Not sure Mrs troy will be persuaded into one again.

  3. #3
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Not sure of the reason(s) for the accident yet...
    However, from Sky:

    He said the cable line was closed in 2014 for a €4.4 million renovation before opening again in 2016, and had only reopened on 24 April after COVID lockdowns forced the closure of ski lifts across Italy last year.

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Had to be a technical error during the refit. Someone didn't torque a bolt properly or something.

    Those poor unlucky people. Ive only gone on the one in BC. Hells gate. I avoid them otherwise

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat
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    I'm curious about the gondola travelling the other way. What happens to that one when the cable breaks?

    Lucky we have backspin to find the problem so quickly....although 'arry could be right and the lift caught covid.

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    this is the ride apparently

  7. #7
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    I'm curious about the gondola travelling the other way. What happens to that one when the cable breaks?

    Lucky we have backspin to find the problem so quickly....although 'arry could be right and the lift caught covid.
    I was just expanding on the info available. If it was renovated recently then that eliminates the possibility that it was some old poorly maintained jalope that cracked.

  8. #8
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    all complicated machinery benefits from regular use. this lift, renovated 4 years ago, was probably lying unused with its condition deteriorating for over a year before being cranked up into operation a month ago. this is the second major disaster to hit italy recently, a massive 150 meter high concrete and steel road bridge collapsed in milan last year due to sloppy maintenance, many were killed as they were driving on it when it collapsed.

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    I'm curious about the gondola travelling the other way. What happens to that one when the cable breaks?

    Lucky we have backspin to find the problem so quickly....although 'arry could be right and the lift caught covid.
    Improper maintenance you fucking dumbarse.


  10. #10
    Thailand Expat
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    ^ Accidents like this are normally caused by a number of errors and maintenance is likely to be just one component.

    I'm just curious if the traction cable failed due to fatigue or whether it was severed due to cable crossover, which has occurred in at least one previous accident. I was also under the impression that there was an emergency brake system that prevented a gondola from travelling backwards in the case of a traction cable failure.

    One of the children died in hospital bringing the total to 14 and the other kid is still in a critical condition with severe head and chest injuries.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by taxexile View Post
    all complicated machinery benefits from regular use. this lift,
    The Teleferico in La Paz, Bolivia and the Metrocable in Medellin, Colombia are integral parts of their mass transit systems. Whilst in Medellin I used the Metrocable quite often.

    Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_092840-jpg

    Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_092913-jpg

    Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_093754-jpg

    Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180713_134448-jpg
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_093800-jpg   Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_092840-jpg   Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_092913-jpg   Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_093754-jpg   Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180713_134448-jpg  

    pues, estamos aqui

  12. #12
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    noice

    Cable Car Accident - Italy-img_20180616_092840-jpg

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat
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    As I suspected, a double failure...

    Italy investigates fatal cable car crash as only survivor fights for life


    Investigators were probing the causes on Monday of a terrifying cable car crash in the Italian mountains that left 14 people dead, and a young child in critical condition.

    The five-year-old boy remained in hospital, the only survivor of Sunday’s accident on the summit of Mottarone mountain in the northwest Piedmont region, with a hospital official saying the next two days were critical.


    The cable car crashed to the ground after a cable broke, according to first reports, while one member of the emergency services said the security brake failed to function.


    The accident came at the start of Italy’s much-anticipated reopening to tourists after coronavirus closures, and elicited condolences from around the world.
    But it also drew condemnation from some commentators over weak security controls in the country’s transportation sector, even though the investigations are still at an early stage.


    Transport Minister Enrico Giovannini arrived in the town of Stresa, from where the cable car started, to meet with local and regional authorities.
    Prosecutors opened an investigation on Sunday into potential charges of involuntary manslaughter, while a government-commissioned inquiry by technical experts is also underway.


    The accident was the first involving a cable car in Italy since 1998, when a low-flying US military jet severed a cable at a ski resort, killing 20 people.
    “There are various aspects of this affair that will certainly be clarified,” Giovannini said in a short press conference, without taking questions.
    The fatal accident near the end of the 20-minute ride up the scenic mountain may have had a dual cause, according to the regional head of Italy’s alpine rescue team, Matteo Gasparini.


    “They are all suppositions, but I think there has been a double problem, the breakup of the cable and the non-working of the emergency brake,” he told La Stampa daily. “We don’t know why it didn’t activate, while in the downstream car it worked.”
    That meant the cable car began quickly falling back and picking up speed before it “ended up catapulted out of the support cables”, Gasparini said.
    The cable car hit a pylon, then hit the ground, tumbling down the mountain for about 500 metres (1,640 feet), before coming to a stop, according to news reports.


    Rescuers found five bodies still inside the cable car, with the others strewn outside. The young survivor, whose parents and two-year-old sibling were killed, was transported to a Turin hospital on Sunday, where he was being treated for injuries to his skull, chest and abdomen and various leg fractures.

    A spokesman at the Citta della Salute hospital told AFP the child was in stable condition after being intubated and sedated, but his condition s
    till serious.

    https://www.thelocal.it/20210524/ita...lago-maggiore/

    The down gondola emergency brake worked correctly but the up car one didn't. I wander if the braking system was directional and permanently disconnected in the up travel due to known technical issues.

  14. #14
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Thinking about where I have been on Cable Cars

    China at the Wall, Norway, Garmish, Barcelona ?

    Never liked them

  15. #15
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    "The brakes failed".

    Hmmm, I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere...

  16. #16
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Prosecutors in Milan said they had opened an investigation into involuntary homicide and negligence. Investigators said they had also seized the operating company's technical and maintenance documentation.

    A lawyer for the company, Ferrovie del Mottarone, said maintenance and checks had been carried out regularly, La Repubblica newspaper reported.

    The cables were not due to be replaced until 2029, the newspaper added.


    "Everything will be subject to technical checks in the coming days", said local public prosecutor Olimpia Bossi. "We are carrying out investigations and technical checks."


    Mottarone cable car crash: Italy investigates cause of accident - BBC News

  17. #17
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Oh dear.

    Police arrested three people Wednesday in the cable car disaster that killed 14 people in northern Italy, saying workers placed a clamp on the emergency brake to deactivate it as a patchwork repair – one that prevented the brake from engaging when the lead cable snapped.
    The revelations, obtained during an overnight police interrogation of the suspects, turned the horror of Sunday’s disaster into outrage, given the tragedy appeared to have been entirely preventable.
    Prosecutor Olimpia Bossi hypothesized that the operators of the sightseeing funicular, which had reopened after a wintertime COVID-19 closure, used the jerry-rigged clamp to avoid having to shut the attraction for the more extensive, “radical” repairs that were necessary.
    Bossi said it still wasn’t clear why the lead cable broke or whether it was related to the brake problem. But she said that the intentional deactivation of the brake, done several times over recent weeks for a persistent problem, prevented the brake from doing its job when the cable snapped.
    Three arrested in Italy cable car crash - The Globe and Mail

  18. #18
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    That's outrageous!

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat lom's Avatar
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    Italy is really Europe's Thailand.

  20. #20
    Thailand Expat
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    This accident rang a bell in my memory so I googled through a list of previous accidents and found this...

    1990 Tbilisi aerial tramway accident - Wikipedia

    The standard oval Georgian gondolas (with a capacity of 25 per gondola), produced in Tbilisi by Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing, were replaced by Italian larger rectangular ones built by "Lovisolo" and provided by "Ceretti & Tanfani", providing greater passenger capacity (40 per gondola). The braking system of the new gondolas did not function properly – while climbing over the upper mast, the braking system would incorrectly engage. The service staff would have to climb on top of the gondola and turn it off manually when this occurred. To avoid this inconvenience, the brakes were just turned off.

    Accident investigation documentation does not identify the cause of the hauling rope breaking inside the coupler. Many unanswered questions still remain, and the cause of the accident is not known.
    Sounds very similar...

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    ^

    Sticky brain

    I can't remember events that recent

  22. #22
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Holy hell. Some people laugh and make fun and ppl who don't go on these kinds of things or amusement park rides. Afraid of heights ? har har.

    Your life hinges on the people who maintain this shit. It goes for aircraft too.


    Edit: From Takeovers post

    The three suspects have been identified as the owner, director and chief of operations of the company that managed the cable car.
    Last edited by Backspin; 27-05-2021 at 12:51 AM.

  23. #23
    Thailand Expat Backspin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    This accident rang a bell in my memory so I googled through a list of previous accidents and found this...

    1990 Tbilisi aerial tramway accident - Wikipedia



    Sounds very similar...

    Note to self. Never go on WOP manufactured cable cars.

  24. #24
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    I just heard this brilliant line in a movie and it reminded me of Skidmark.

    "He writes with his tongue out".

  25. #25
    Thailand Expat
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    Italy cable car fall: Three arrested over fatal accident - BBC News

    T
    hree people have been arrested in Italy over Sunday's cable car accident that left 14 dead.


    Investigators say the emergency brakes had been disabled and the three members of the operating company were aware.


    According to a local transport official, the brake failure meant the car was travelling at over 100km/h (62 mph) when the cable broke.


    The car plunged 20m (65ft) into the side of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.


    Prosecutors are carrying out an investigation into suspected involuntary homicide and negligence.


    Was the brake tampered with?
    The three suspects have been identified as the owner, director and chief of operations of the company that managed the cable car.


    AFP reports that local prosecutor Olimpia Bossi told a press conference that the brake had been tampered with in a "conscious act" and suggested the car was unsafe before Sunday's accident.


    Italy probes cause of fatal cable car accident
    The prosecutor alleged a fork-like clamp had been placed over the emergency brake, which had been malfunctioning, after repair work on the car was unsuccessful, according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.


    "It had been applied to avoid continuous disruptions and blockages of the cable car," she said, adding that the suspects had believed that the cable would never break.


    According to the newspaper, investigators had initially believed the clamp had been left in place by mistake.




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