Cable snapped and the cable car fell and tumbled down the mountain killing over a dozen people. One survivor and the cable car was operating at reduced capacity because of covid restrictions.

Three individuals from the company which operated the cable car have been arrested:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57252289

I read about it the other day. I started developing a fear of heights over the last couple of years. I think about the cable snapping every time I'm on a chairlift or riding a tram at a ski area.

Italian construction maintenance has never been highly trusted, as seen by the bridge catastrophe near Genoa and now this.

I was wondering about this a couple of days ago... I'm sure that many here have been in that cable car in the past -- not me yet but we would do it when we visit some day. Thanks for providing more detail, scrb11.

I am a huge fan of Stresa, been there many times, and have taken that cable car at least half a dozen times, so it hits home. Horrible.

I was shocked to see this in the news. What a tragic loss of life. It hits a little close to home as we were in Stresa about 2 years ago and took that cable car.

Apparently it was an Israeli family on that cable car. Only one young boy survived and that was because his father shielded him with his body.

Italy is permitting tourists from Israel to visit now.

Moved to Europe Forum

Italian cableways are completely safe, if they are not run by criminal staff members or idiots.
The Mottarone gondola was produced and checked completely not later than 2 years ago by the renowned cableway constructor Leitner, based at Sterzing (Italy) which built hundreds of cableways all over the Alps.
The fact is that the cableway staff at Stresa put out of service the security brake (legal term: negligent homicide) in order to avoid some minor repair works (which would have cost a few thousand euros).
Let's hope that these people will be sent into prison for a long time.

I see that the management are now trying to blame the operator for this activity.

The car needed major repair work. It had been taken out of service for repairs earlier this year, but still wasn't functioning properly; the brakes were being activated repeatedly during operation. It really needed a major overhaul, which would have required it to be taken out of service for a considerable time. I read today that it's now thought that the brakes were being activated because the safety system was detecting an abnormal tension in the cables. In other words, that the failing cable actually was causing the brakes to be activated as a security measure. In that case, it would be analogous to covering up the smoke alarm to keep it from going off. However, this explanation doesn't convince me. This was not the only car operating on the system. Why would only one car exhibit this anomalous behavior if the root cause were in the cable?

"Cable cars are completely safe." A poster on another forum provided evidence that cable cars have accidents, no matter the country. Even in my area in Switzerland, we've had accidents and this area houses one of the leading cable-car manufacturers in the world. Unfortunately, it seems poor decisions were made in Stresa that led to the tragedy. Terrible.

Kleeblatt, I agree with you that cable cars have accidents, like trains, ferries, planes and - of course - buses. cars and bikes .In the whole Alps, there were 10 major accidents in the last 10 years, but no dead people.
Bvlenci: I wrote what I heard in RAI 1, la 5, RSI, etc. at the end of May. In the meantime, we learnt more and it seems that even the renowned Leitner SpA is involved in criminal acts. The big accidents of the last 50 years where people died took place at Soelden/Austria /9 dead people), Zell am See/Austria (155 dead people), Crans-sur-Sierre/Switzerland (2 dead people), Cavalese/Italy (62 dead people), Pitztal/Austria (1 dead people), Champoluc/Italy (11 dead people), Val Venoste/Italy (2 dead people), Aletsch area/Switzerland (13 dad people), Chamonix/France (10 dead people).

mote/beam

caution is required in understanding what happened

many bridges have collapsed in the US too

Cavalese 1998; 20 people died when a US airforce plane cut the cable after flying under it, against all regulations. Pilot was found not guilty by a US court.