Aerial Tramways - List of Accidents

List of Accidents

Despite the introduction of various safety measures (back-up power generators, evacuation plans, etc.) there have been several serious incidents on aerial tramways, some of which were fatal.

• August 29, 1961: A military plane split the hauling cable of the Vallee Blanche Aerial Tramway on the Aiguille du Midi in the Mont Blanc massif: six people killed.
• March 9, 1976: In the Italian Dolomites at Cavalese, a cab fell after a rope break, killing 42. (See Cavalese cable car disaster (1976))
• April 15, 1978: In a storm, two carrying ropes of the Squaw Valley Aerial Tramway in California fell from the aerial tramway support tower. One of the ropes partly destroyed the cabin. 4 killed, 32 injured.
• June 1, 1990: Tbilisi, Georgia. After the hauling rope broke, the lower car rolled back and slammed on the wall of the lower station injuring people. The upper car subsequently rolled down, generating higher speed due to a failure of the brakes; on reaching the lower cable car support mast, it collided with the broken hauling rope which tore the cabin apart and caused people to fall from a height of 20 meters onto rooftops and ground. 20 killed and many injured after jumping from accelerating cabin. Most of them were children celebrating "Children's day". Days before, the standard Soviet gondolas were changed to bigger ones brought from Finland without any precautions.
• February 3, 1998: U.S. military aircraft severed the cable of an aerial ropeway in Cavalese, Italy, killing 20 people. (See Cavalese cable car disaster (1998))
• October 19, 2003: Four were killed and 11 injured when three cars slipped off the cable of the Darjeeling Ropeway.
• October 9, 2004: Crash of a cabin of the Grünberg aerial tramway in Gmunden, Austria. Many hurt.
• April 18, 2006: New York's Roosevelt Island Tramway experienced a power failure, leaving 69 passengers in two trams stranded over the East River for approximately seven hours, just eight months after a similar incident in which trams were stranded for 90 minutes. No injuries or fatalities occurred in either incident.