A total of 14 people died on Sunday in the Western Alps on Mount Mottarone after the cable car cabin tore off and fell to the ground. The Italian daily la Repubblica managed to find out the identity of some of the victims. The tragedy affected, for example, the Biran family, who are originally from Israel. The young couple Amit and Tal, their two-year-old son and Talina’s grandparents lost their lives.
Their second (five-year-old) son is the only survivor of the fall of the cabin. He ended up in a Turin hospital with serious injuries. Amit and Tal lived with their children in Lombardy, where a 30-year-old man studied medicine and worked as a security guard at a Jewish school.
“I know him well, I spoke to him last Friday. He told me that he decided to go on a trip with children and grandparents who came from Israel,” Milo Hatzbani, head of the Jewish community in Milan, told Israeli Radio Army Radio.
The fall of the cabin also changed the fate of a young Italian couple, 29-year-old Alessandro and 27-year-old Silvia. Both fiancés died in the crash. Partners Angelo and Robert also lost their lives. At Mottarone, Robertina celebrated her 40th birthday. Just before she died, the woman sent her last text message to her sister, which read, “We’re going up the cable car.”
The accident also claimed the death of a nine-year-old child who died after being taken to hospital. This became the fourteenth victim.
The tragedy is probably due to a technical error
The Italian authorities have launched an investigation. The case has so far been classified as negligent homicide. Investigators requested documentation from the cable car operator Ferrovie del Mottarone. Her lawyer said maintenance and technical inspections were carried out regularly.
Shortly after the accident, two technical problems were revealed, according to the head of the Alpine rescue service Matteo Gasparini. According to him, the rope broke and the emergency brake failed. “The other ropes are intact. But it’s too early to tell us what happened technically,” said police chief Giorgio Santacroce.
Cable cars from the same manufacturer also run in the Czech Republic
The cable car is also responsible for the maintenance of the cable car manufacturer, the South Tyrolean company Leitner, which is a world leader in this sector. In addition to Italy, its cable cars run in Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Austria, Turkey, Armenia, Greece, and even Iraq.
The Czechia also owes a number of its cable cars to Leitner. Thanks to its technologies, the cable car runs from Pec nad Sněžkou to Sněžka, from Malá Morávka to Kopřivná, from Pstruží to Plešivec, from Špindlerův Mlýn to Pláň or in Janské Lázně (Hofmanky Express).
According to the company, the last magnetoscopic inspection of the cable car on the Mottarone was carried out in November last year. “The results did not reveal any critical problems. General maintenance, which includes the repair of the entire system from cabs to winches and electrical equipment, took place in August 2016,” Alto Adige quoted the company’s president Anton Seeber as saying.
Leitner tests the ropes every year, and Ferrovie del Mottarone is in charge of daily and weekly operational inspections.
You can learn more about the tragedy in the Italian Alps in Sunday’s TV Nova report:
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