Cavalese Cable Car Disaster (1998)

Cavalese Cable Car Disaster (1998)

The Cavalese cable car disaster of 1998 (as distinct from a cable car disaster in the same location in 1976), occurred on 3 February 1998 near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort located in the Dolomites, some 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Trento. The disaster, which led to the death of 20 people, occurred when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler cut a cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway.

The pilot, Captain Richard J. Ashby, and his navigator, Captain Joseph Schweitzer, were put on trial in the United States and were found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide. Later they were found guilty of obstruction of justice and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman for having destroyed a videotape recorded from the plane and were dismissed from the Marine Corps. The disaster, and the subsequent acquittal of the pilots, put pressure on the international relationship between the United States and Italy, where the event is known as the Strage del Cermis ("Massacre of Cermis", Cermis being the mountain to whose peak the cable car travelled).