A cable car plunged to the ground at Mount Faito in Naples yesterday afternoon, killing four people – including two Britons. The cabin had been near the top of the mountain when one of the wires suddenly gave way, sending the entire car crashing to the ground.
Prosecutors launched an investigation, and confirmed that one of the people killed was the driver of the cable car. The cable car crashed close to the Castellammare di Stabia station, about 45km from Naples city centre. The cable car track heads directly up Mount Faito, south of the station. It’s believe the cabin crashed along the route at the base of the mountain. Pictures showed people being rescued from a second cabin further down the mountain, near to the train line that crosses just south of the cable car station.
Prosecutor of Torre Annunziata, Nunzio Fragliasso, said: “We are in the preliminary phase of the investigations”. The unnamed British couple died alongside an Israeli woman and the driver of the cable car, named by Italian media as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato.
A fourth tourist is understood to be in intensive care at the Ospedale del Mare hospital in Naples. It is feared bad weather may have played a part in the tragedy, which came after a yellow weather alert was declared from 2pm, due to the risk of thunderstorms.
According to reports in Italy, the cable car set off at 2.40pm before a problem was identified six minutes later, which should have triggered the system’s emergency brakes. According to initial findings, the cabin remained on the wire for a few seconds, then came crashing down.
But when rescuers originally got to the scene, which was covered in fog, they initially believed the car was suspended somewhere above them, obscured by the weather.
At 4.45pm, witnesses heard rescuers shouting hopefully: “They are above, they are above.” Locals, including the dead cable car driver’s worried wife, waited for updates at a nearby station, as constant attempts were made to contact him on his phone.
However, at 5.15pm the previous optimism was eroded when an investigator told them: “The cabin has fallen, there are victims.”
Another cable car, containing 16 people, was trapped in the air as a result of the incident and had to be rescued, with footage in Italian media showing survivors being transferred from the cars in harnesses.
Eav CEO Umberto De Gregorio said: “What happened is an unimaginable, unforeseeable tragedy, which will obviously need to be clarified. We have a very high-quality operations manager. Sometimes it closes in the presence of strong winds, evidently today he deemed that the conditions were not such as to impose the stop.
“The director of operations decides on weather conditions. In this case, it was evidently deemed that the conditions were not such as to warrant a closure.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Office told the Mirror: “We are monitoring the situation following an incident in Italy and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The popular attraction, which offers panoramic views of nearby Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples over its 3km journey and carried more than 108,000 passengers last year, had only reopened for the tourist season ten days ago after meeting all safety conditions.
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