Four people were killed and another was severely injured on Thursday when their cable car crashed into a ravine in Italy.
The accident happened near Naples and Sorrento when the cable snapped in severe weather, plunging into the valley below where it hit a pylon and a construction crane.
Two couples and the operator were onboard.
The lone survivor was severely injured and air-lifted to a hospital in Naples, officials said. The identities of the victims were not released.
The cable car, which was reopened for the season following renovations earlier this month, runs about 1.8 miles from the town of Castellammare di Stabia up Monte Faito and offers views of the Gulf of Naples and the Mount Vesuvius volcano.
“The traction cable broke. The emergency brake downstream worked, but evidently not the one on the cabin that was entering the station,” Castellammare Mayor Luigi Vicinanza said.
The cable cars below the break were evacuated safely. Sixteen people were stopped mid-air near the foot of the mountain but were lowered to the ground with harnesses.
First responders took about 90 minutes to locate the wreckage due to high winds and foggy conditions.
In 2021, 14 people were killed in Italy’s northern Piedmont region when a cable car connecting Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plummeted to the ground. The cause was later determined to be a snapped cable and emergency brake failure.
