Falling trees caused a gondola cabin to fall to the ground this morning in Austria, seriously injuring three people and critically injuring a fourth. Two others in an adjacent cabin suffered minor injuries. The accident happened in the town of Oetz on the Acherkogelbahn, an eight seat gondola built by Doppelmayr in 2000. The lift features 66 cabins with DT-108 grips. The carrier fell from a height of approximately 23 feet about half way up the line in a steep, wooded area. The injured were evacuated via helicopter and the rest of the lift was cleared of riders without incident.
This is at least the third lift accident in the past year caused by falling trees. Just before Christmas, trees fell on a detachable quad in Italy, causing chairs to stack up and injure riders. A year ago at Park City, Utah, a ski patroller was killed when falling trees violently shook a triple chairlift during a heavy snow cycle.
Lift Blog 
We had more cases of trees falling onto lifts this summer in Austria.
This was the biggest one: https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3217018/
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I don’t know what can be done but I feel like something should be done to change tree control near lifts. It’s sad that innocent lives are lost from things they don’t need to be.
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Tree survey by qualified Arborist, remove or trim danger trees (topping, branches removed). We used to do this every summer at area I last worked. There are courses you can take to be a certified dangerous tree assessor in British Columbia, As a lift mechanic I took a 3 day course that gave me the basic knowledge. Need to do this in off season so you can also look at ground around trees (drainage, roots, etc..).
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More photos of this particular gondola:
https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-tcd8-acherkogel-doppelmayr-8048.html
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Not a good time in the ski world. 1 dead and one injured after inbounds slide right under KT-22
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