Three people arrested after Italy cable car disaster

Three people have been arrested in Italy following a cable car tragedy that killed 14 people in the country’s north earlier this week.

Three people have been arrested in Italy following a cable car tragedy that killed 14 people in the country’s north earlier this week.

A five-year-old boy was the lone survivor of the accident, which occurred on Sunday on the Stresa-Alpino Mottarone funicular, which transports passengers from the resort town Stresa to the peak of the nearby Mottarone mountain.

According to Italy’s alpine rescue service, the car was about 100 metres away from the 1400 metre summit when it fell, crashing into a wooded area. After a 20-metre drop, it rolled over several times before coming to a stop.

Italian newswire service ANSA cited a local public prosecutor in the district, who confirmed that investigators had taken three people into custody over the incident, including the cable car’s lead engineer.

The trio, all involved in the management of the car, are accused of deliberately deactivating the emergency brake that could have stopped it slamming into the side of the mountain.

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Three people have been arrested in Italy following a cable car tragedy that killed 14 people. Picture: AFP Photo/Vigili Del Fuoco

A five-year-old boy was the lone survivor of the accident. Picture: AFP Photo/Vigili Del Fuoco

“The public prosecutors office has ordered three arrests for removal or omission of precautions against accidents at work,” a spokesman for the Carabinieri police told AFP.

Italian news agencies named the three suspects as Luigi Nerini, the head of Ferrovie del Mottarone, the firm which manages the cable car, and two other managers, Gabriele Tadini and Enrico Perocchio.

Local police official Alberto Cicognani told Radiotre radio station that the emergency brake was deactivated after a malfunction.

“There were malfunctions in the cable car, the maintenance team was called, they did not fix the problem, or only in part,” he said.

“To avoid further interruptions in the service, they chose to leave ‘the fork’ which prevents the emergency brake from working.”

Mr Cicognani claimed all three men admitted what had happened.

In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, before the arrests, local chief prosecutor Olimpia Bossi described what happened on Sunday.

“The cable, it is clear, that was the leading cable, snapped,” she said.

“The braking system did not work — the system that blocks the cabin on the load-bearing cable, which is a system that works in emergencies, which must work in emergencies when an accident such as the breakage of the cable could occur.”

She added: “No one could imagine that what was a Sunday outing turned into a nightmare that ended

– with AFP