Cutting the Cable?

5/26/21—What started out as a freakish ‘tramgedy’, symptomatic of Italy’s creaky facilities and crumbling transportation infrastructure—the worst since a decaying Genoa bridge collapsed three years ago, killing 43—may have been no accident at all.

Because the May 23 plunge of a cable car carrying passengers from the Piedmont Region resort town of Stresa up nearby Mottarone Mountain likely resulted from shoddy maintenance and negligence. So charged a local prosecutor, who oversaw Tuesday’s arrest of the tour service’s owner, director and chief of operations for involuntary manslaughter and negligence.

The (40-passenger capacity) tram sped backwards after its tow cable snapped, catapulting, then striking a pylon—plummeting 65 feet into steep, difficult mountain terrain up between Lakes Orta and Maggiore, some 5,000 feet above sea level. Fourteen tourists perished in the crash, with two children seriously injured. The operators are accused of knowingly disabling the car’s emergency brake to ‘avoid disruptions and blockages’. They allegedly placed a fork-like clamp over the brake a month ago, ostensibly believing the tow line would never break in their cable car system (which has been running since 1970, but shut down for major repairs between 2014-2016). We’ll see what arises from this scenic Northern Italy disaster. (MTC…)