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Whistler Blackcomb Gondola Splits in Half, People Stranded
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by Terri Potratz | December 16, 2008 at 04:05 pm
3081 views | 25 Recommendations | 14 comments
A Whistler Blackcomb gondola tower split in half today at the popular ski resort in BC, Canada.
Several people were trapped in cabins hanging by a wire and waiting for rescue:
Whistler RCMP said no one was injured in the incident, and firefighters are trying to get people trapped in three gondola cabins safely to the ground.
The accident happened shortly before 3 p.m. on the Excalibur Gondola, which runs up Blackcomb mountain.
Photos
53 skiers and snowboarders were rescued from gondola cabins after being trapped for hours, and 12 people were injured as a result of support tower #4 splitting in half. Rescuers had to secure the fallen tower before people could be safely removed from the cabins, hence the long wait in rescuing trapped individuals.
Some were trapped for hours until the evacuation was complete just before 6 p.m.
In an interview shortly after being rescued, snowboarder Logan Swayze said he entered a gondola car at 2:15 p.m. A short time later, it stopped abruptly."We didn't think anything of it at first. [The lifts] stop all the time," he said. "But the time drew on." Only after he made a phone call to a friend did he learn that a tower had collapsed.
After an hour's wait, Swayze's car was moved slowly to the base, where he saw fire and ambulance crews stretching ladders to the cars to bring skiers to the ground.
"We saw a lift tower had broken in half and the gondola was hanging. There were still people in the bottom half" of the gondola, he said.
None of the 15-20 affected gondola cars actually came off the cable; one reportedly rested on a house, another on a bus stop. The faulty tower was located near the base of the mountain by Fitzsimmons Creek.
Whistler Blackcomb and the BC Safety Authority are investigating the matter, but so far it is unknown how or why the top portion of tower #4 became detached from its base.
Doppelmayr, the company who designed the Excalibur Gondola at Whistler Blackcomb, is also responsible for designing the brand new Peak to Peak Gondola at Whistler, which just opened last Friday.
There is some speculation as to how this accident will factor into the upcoming 2010 Olympics - while the Excalibur Gondola hadn't yet been specifically slated for official use by VANOC, there were talks underway:
Vanoc is not currently planning on using the Excalibur as transportation to or from any Olympic venues, said spokeswoman Renée Smith-Valade, although discussions about using the gondola had been under way.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (14)
at 16:29 on December 16th, 2008
oh wow..I hope they end up safe.
at 17:18 on December 16th, 2008
Ouch!
at 17:44 on December 16th, 2008
Turns out three people were taken to hospital. The photos of the car hanging above the creek were insane.
I'm not going skiing anytime soon...
at 09:41 on December 17th, 2008
Okay people lets not sensationalize this to the point that Americans do. The Gondola didn't split in half the one tower did falling to the ground dropping the wires 10-20'. The creek is all of 6 inches deep so no biggy. The picture in the story is the Peak to Peak which is the wrong gondola.
at 19:58 on December 16th, 2008
I always think the worst when I'm in tram or gondola - this is why. I hope those that are hurt recover.
at 20:01 on December 16th, 2008
Whistler is quite a popular place. I know people from La Paz Mexico that travel to sky at Whistler, my son included. I sure hope this doesn't happen again. It must be terrifying for the people trapped
at 21:30 on December 16th, 2008
The injury count is now ten people, one of which as been transported to a hospital in Vancouver. It seems that this incident is a little more serious than originally reported by both Whistler and CBC. One of the cabins actually hit the ground and began rolling down the hill. Minor damage was caused to a condo underneath the lift as well. Kind of unnerving considering Whistler just opened the Peak to Peak Gondola on Friday which is the largest un-supported Gondola in the world.
at 21:37 on December 16th, 2008
Thanks for the update Tyler. I would be especially weary of hopping onto the Peak to Peak Gondola now, for sure.
at 22:08 on December 16th, 2008
Just so you guys know - no cabins became unattached, and nothing hit the ground...
All the cabins were still on the haulrope. Whistler Blackcomb and the safety services in Whistler dealt with this very quickly and efficiently.
Nobody was seriously injured, most people were just cold.
A job well done by all those involved in helping after this incident.
This is just a freak accident, Whistler is still awesome and I wont hesitate getting on the lifts here. The maintenence crews have a strict safetly checklist to complete every single day.
WHISTLER RULES!
at 09:44 on December 17th, 2008
Holy crap this is what is wrong with the internet. No none of the gondolas hit the ground and none came loose of the cables so no none went 'rolling down the hill'.
at 22:58 on December 16th, 2008
I live in whistler,this was bound to happen,they focus so much on the other issues such as the olympics and neglect the real issues that matter,housing and the mountain.the workers here in whistler will have nowhere to live,during the months of the olympics ,home owners are charging as high as 60,000 for those 3 weeks.whistler has a problem and canada has yet to face it.
at 06:06 on December 17th, 2008
For IntraWest to focus only on Excalibur Gondola is a bit of a PR exercise, since Doppelmayer makes most (if not all) of the gondolas and chair-lifts that service Whistler-Blackcomb. Meanwhile, though, no doubt a massive QA exercise is underway!
at 16:33 on December 17th, 2008
This only shows that our modern technology can still fail.
at 16:55 on December 18th, 2008
Doppelmayer is crap!!