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A cable car cabin crashed unchecked into the valley station of the Bettmeralp cable car in 1972. Other cable car accidents have claimed lives in Switzerland.
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Twelve people died in the cable car disaster on the Bettmeralp in 1972. Before the tragedy in Engelberg, there were six other cable car accidents with fatalities and serious injuries. An overview.
Following the crash of a cable car gondola in Engelberg OW, the devastating accident from 1972 has once again become a topic of discussion - the most serious cable car accident in Switzerland happened on Bettmeralp VS and led to further tightening of safety guidelines.
To date, six more people have lost their lives in such incidents involving mountain railroads. Dozens have been seriously injured. At the same time, millions of people have reached their destinations in the mountains safely.
What the accidents also show: In most cases, it is not the technology that failed, but the people operating the lift. In some cases, however, it was also the wind that struck with a force that was not expected at the time.
This is the most serious cable car accident in Switzerland. Twelve people die after the cable of the Bettmeralp cableway breaks. Although regularly checked, it was eaten through by rust.
Due to a maintenance error, the brake that should have prevented what happened did not work either: the cabin of the aerial tramway hurtled into the valley station and crashed there.
Two young people survived seriously injured, all the other passengers were killed. Years later, the operations manager and an employee were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The cable car cabin crashed into the valley station on July 12, 1972, killing twelve people.
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The haul rope was no longer properly guided by the pulleys on a mast, causing four gondolas to sag and crash to the ground. They were pulled up again by the rope and hit the ground a second time.
One man died and a woman lost her lower leg. A nine-year-old boy broke a vertebra in his neck, but escaped without permanent damage after months of care.
In 1958, the cable car from Stöckalp to the Melchsee-Frutt ski area was opened. In 1979, a serious accident occurred in which a man died (archive photo from 1958).
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The wheel in the valley station, over which the Riederalp cableway's hauling and suspension cable ran, was torn out of its anchoring and the building. The 15 cabins on the cable, which had lost all tension, sagged and several hit the ground hard.
A local mountain guide died and 15 other people were injured, some of them seriously. Investigations revealed that the wheel axle was too thinly dimensioned due to miscalculations.
A fatigue crack caused the wheel to break away. Two engineers were found guilty of negligent homicide and negligent grievous bodily harm.
The orange sheave, over which the only cable of the Riederalp Railway runs, lies in the snow in front of the station building. It was torn from its anchoring when the axle broke.
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During the storm Lothar, a tree fell onto the cable of the Cry d'Err cableway in Crans-Montana. The cabin then plunged twelve meters into the forest. Five people were inside.
A 13-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman died from their injuries. A report by SRF's "Tagesschau" on the day of the accident raises the question of why the cable car was in operation despite what was already described at the time as the "storm of the century", Lothar. This storm flattened entire sections of forest in various places in Switzerland.
One of the victims of the 1999 cable car accident in Crans-Montana is transported to hospital by rescue helicopter.
SRF «Tagesschau»
Despite a strong föhn wind, the Fallboden chairlift on Kleine Scheidegg in the Bernese Oberland was running. A particularly strong gust of wind threw the rope out of the guide on a mast, causing several chairs to fall.
A German skier died on impact with the ground. Nine other people were injured, some of them seriously. In its report, Sust blamed the wind alone.
Neither material nor operating errors had led to the serious chain of events. Other passengers on the chairlift had reported calm or strong gusts of wind at the time of the accident, depending on their position.
January 3, 2008: A ski lift accident on Kleine Scheidegg claims one life.
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The two cabins of the aerial cableway on the Hoher Kasten in Appenzell Innerrhoden were traveling far too fast. During an inspection, an employee was supposed to monitor the speed and brake the cable car manually.
Instead, the two empty cabins crashed into the top and bottom stations almost without braking. The lower cabin tore an iron grating from its anchoring, trapping and seriously injuring an employee.
Fortunately, no one was in the gondola: a cabin on the Hoher Kasten cable car in Brülisau AI crashed into the valley station almost without braking, seriously injuring an employee.
Kapo AI
While ten people were returning from a company outing on the chairlift from Fronalpstock to Stoos SZ late in the evening, a Ratrac driver was preparing a slope. As is usual in steep terrain, his vehicle was secured to a winch with a steel cable.
A downhill chair touched the winch cable, was torn from the cable and plunged around ten meters into the depths. Four people were on it, one woman was seriously injured and a forty-year-old died in the accident.
The court later found the operations manager guilty of involuntary manslaughter and multiple counts of negligent bodily injury. He had not drawn up a clear concept for night rides on the chairlift, which - if adhered to - would have prevented such an accident.
Pistenbully drivers and chairlift employees did not know that they were operating in the same place at night. The accident cost one man his life.
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A cable car gondola comes loose from the cable in strong winds, probably after hitting a mast, and crashes into steep terrain. The 61-year-old woman in the cabin dies in the accident.
The gondola crashed onto a steep slope, overturned several times and came to rest on flatter terrain. The woman inside died at the scene of the accident.
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