Italy today arrested three people involved in the fall of a cabin on the Stresa cable car, located in the Piedmont region, last Sunday (23) and which caused the death of 14 people.
Among the detainees is Luigi Nerini, manager of the Ferrovia do Mottarone company, which managed the cable car, and engineer Enrico Perocchio.
The Verbânia Public Prosecutor’s Office discovered during the investigations that the emergency brake, called the “fork” and which is located in the cabin, was not intentionally activated to prevent the entire cable car structure from being paralyzed for a long time.
Prosecutors Olimpia Bossi and Laura Carrera and the provincial commander of the Verbânia Carabineros Weapon, Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Cicognani, reported that the three detainees confirmed the deliberate action and said the equipment had been in trouble for about a month and a half.
“There was a malfunction in the cable car, maintenance was called, which did not solve the problem or partially solved it.
To avoid further interruptions in service, they chose not to activate the ‘fork’, which prevented the emergency brake from starting, “Cicognani told RAI Tre.
As the emergency brake system was not activated at the moment when one of the structure’s cables broke, the cabin ended up descending at more than 100km / h and, upon reaching the first pole that held the structure, it was launched into the air for 54 meters , falling next to a forest after rolling on the ground for a few meters.
Investigations also found that the brake inside the cabin was tampered with. Bossi explained that the “fork”, that is, the distributor that keeps the brake shoes at a distance that can brake the transport cable in the event of a break, “has not been removed and activated”.
Bossi also said that the “development of the investigation” has reached a point “very serious and disturbing” and that now the other employees of the cable car will be investigated to find out who else knew of such a serious problem.
The head of the National Secretariat for Local Bodies, Francesco Boccia, said that “if the prosecutor’s hypotheses are true, we will be facing a very serious, deplorable and unforgivable case”.
“Security can never be considered a heavy cost, a waste of time or a bureaucratic hassle that gets in the way of business. Without security, there is no business and those who do not accept that, do not deserve to have a company,” he added.
The tragedy on the Stresa-Mottarone cable car occurred in the early afternoon of Sunday, around 1 pm. According to what was found, the cabin arrived at the landing area, had a bump and started to descend in reverse.
Of the 15 passengers on board, who were from five families, only one 5-year-old boy survived. Eitan is in serious condition in the ICU of the Turin Health City hospital.
The good news is that the baby was removed from the induced coma on Wednesday and is responding well to treatment. According to the director general of the hospital, Giovanni La Valle, an aunt of the child is beside him.
In the incident, Eitan lost his parents and two brothers.
