A lift incident occurred on the Comet Express at Heavenly this morning, injuring five people. Two quad chairs could be seen stacked together near the base of the lift with several guests on the ground below being assisted by ski patrol and one guest pinned between the chairs. “Chair slid backwards with people on it into the chair behind it,” wrote a witness on Reddit. “The people in the front chair fell off,” the person said. The lift was closed for the day and remains closed. “Heavenly Mountain Resort can confirm an incident occurred on its Comet Express chairlift today, Monday, December 23, 2024,” the resort said in a statement. “The safety of our guests is our top priority and the resort is investigating the incident.” A flight tracking website showed a medevac helicopter landed in one of Heavenly’s parking lots before continuing to a Reno hospital.
Comet Express was built by Doppelmayr and opened in 1988. It is the oldest detachable lift at Heavenly and features DS series grips.
Lift Blog 
A lot of incidents have been occurring on lifts recently!
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Not really.
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You know Donald for someone who writes comments on liftblog all the time, I would think you would at least act considerably online.
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Considering how uncommon ski lift accidents are, two accidents in less than 3 days is a lot
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And that’s not even considering the LaVelle lift incident
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In the pre-social media, pre-smartphone, pre-internet era there were incidents that occurred that rarely made the media.
Maybe some local news picked-up, but never when viral across the nation within hours..
I would love to see data proving otherwise, but no days any incident can go viral on moments notice.
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That is not how statistics work! Sample size is too small to say anything about frequency.
Also, and basically, once the first event happens the second is totally random again. Lets say one lift event happens every 100 days on average in the world (no idea if that is correct but lets just say). The chance of two happening on consecutive days BEFORE the first happens is 0.01% – very low. BUT after the first happens, the chance a second will happen the next day then is 1% becase the first already happened.
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There are thousands of chairlifts in the US, and the world as a whole. One or two major incidents happening a few days apart for vastly different reasons isn’t proof of anything.
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I am wrong about 70% of the time on this site, But it is always shocking to see a ski lift accident on this website, let alone 3 in less than a week.
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Maybe it’s sabotage.
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Seems like a lot if PeakRankings made a video about it:
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More and more are bound to come. Ski instructors and Ski patrollers are promoted to the top positions without any real understanding of the machines that make the business possible. Being a technician is long hard physical dangerous and stressful work and we don’t get a vacation in the ‘offseason’ if you work for one of the big ones. We can’t find good people, we can’t keep good people around but for some reason when it comes to lift maintenance the wage that has been decided upon in closed door meetings is what we get. I’m not saying it’s a job that should make you rich, but something has got to give. A good tech needs 5 years on the job to really get to really understand the machine and get a sense of the trends and patterns of the maintenance. It would be interesting if the ski industry actually cared about this problem and did a study, but my guess is most lift technicians last 3-5 years whereas we need to keep them 10-20 years or longer. At some point one would think supply and demand will catch on but I think it’s already too late for that and the industry has lost too many of the old guard to retirement and largely hasn’t replaced them with the next generation. Considering the new lifts are bigger with more electronics watch out when they are approaching 40-50 years old. But what would I know, as a lift technician, I’m just an ‘over glorified lift operator with a radio’, an actual quote from someone who’s way up in the stratosphere of ski area management.
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I am a retired mechanical engineer, and worked at Heavenly for 10+ years..The mechanics are The Best,,it just amazes me how .7 bolts gave way at once. A good lifty would have noticed maybe something..I looked at Every carrier as it went by..Not the norm.. Training is Great,,but a trained eye would have noticed something wrong, either coming into the terminal,,,or leaving..Glad No one was seriously injured,,,It;s a great, safe environment,,usually..Peace and Love..Rev. Shorty Love..
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Operators loaded the chair after a grip force error?
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Is this speculation or do you have knowledge about the incident?
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Pretty sure that is not possible.
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Grip force faults on DS lifts occur on the outgoing side. Procedure is to unload the chair, inspect the grip, and even reverse it into the terminal if necessary to remove it from the line. If I recall correctly that’s out of the Doppelmayr book and is not an area-specific writeup.
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Also , if the grip lands on a tuck in the rope it might generate a grip force fault. Still, the break fork needs replacing and the grip checked before resuming operation.
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Will be interesting if more details emerge about the adherence to the manufacturer’s recommendations.
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Doubtful details will emerge for a bit depending on the resulting lawsuits. However there’s several potential causes and looking at the pictures the grips both appear to be closed due to the position of the arm and mobile jaw, so I’m putting my money on either an incorrect jaw size installed or a jumped out or improperly adjusted grip force break fork.
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Might be time to finally replace this lift Heavenly…
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are there any lift maintenance people still working at Heavenly? Seems like a lot of talent has left in the past few months and it is starting to show.
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haha, I worked there for 7 years lift maintenance on cal side and left 2 years ago because they were paying first year kids the same as me…
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At least they actually paid their bills. I worked for Vail Resorts from 2011 to 2017, and every winter it was like pulling teeth to get new blank name tags ordered, because VR never paid their bill to the supplier the year prior.
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I heard the same thing last weekend from an employee riding up the gondola with me, he said that the head of lift maintenance was asked to leave? And a few other folks that were close to retirement decided to leave rather than continue to work. I wasn’t sure if he had all his facts correct, I guess he did.
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It does appear Heavenly has job openings posted for both Lift Mechanic and Lift Electrician.
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https://www.2news.com/news/california/incident-on-chairlift-at-heavenly-mountain-resort-hospitalizes-5/article_b8840188-c16d-11ef-9622-9b8f4500c81b.html
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Had 4 friends on those chairs today. Some very serious accidents that should have never happened.
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Sorry to hear it! Hope they get better
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Are my eyes deceiving me, or is the grip on the chair that slid noticeably not in the fully closed position?
It definitely does not look the same as the chair it slid into ..
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Yep.
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How are the jurisdictions of regulatory bodies handled at Heavenly, and the other ski areas that straddled state/provincial lines? Do the lifts need approval from the different regulatory bodies depending on what side of the border they are located?
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If I’m correct, the middle of the loading line plastic marker for Comet is the state line from CA/NV. I’ve been to Heavenly many times and my lift tracking app buzzes saying “Welcome to Nevada!” and “Welcome to California!” when on the lift and going down the runs.
I wonder how it’s going to work.
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Actually, it’s the unload station that straddles the state line.
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I stand corrected.
I wonder what they’re going to do with the grips. It’s so old, I think they might change all of the grips…
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Comet lift is in Nevada. Unlike CA. Nevada has no ski lift inspection program. Comet falls under the permit conditions and requirements of the USFS. The USFS requires a third party lift inspection annually.
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Half of its upper station is in California… :-)
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It still gets inspected yearly by California inspector since one terminal is in Cali. A few years ago an inspector was riding comet and found a crack on a tower cross arm that was %50-%60 through. That lift needs to go with its driveshaft driven PTO’s.
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The CA/NV state line runs through the Comet upper terminal. The CA. state line runs through the middle of Heavenly Dipper lift. The state of CA. inspects Heavenly Dipper lift. Comet lift has always been considered a Nevada lift and has never been inspected by the state of CA.
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Could be a problem with the rebuilding of the DS Grip, incidents like this have happened before because of incorrect rebuild (missing part or step). There has been a Doppelmayr bulletin out about this for years.
See link to British Columbia Safety Order relating to a similar incident.
https://www.technicalsafetybc.ca/regulatory-resources/regulatory-notices/safety-order-above-surface-passenger-ropeway-detachable-grip-rebuild
Grip can be almost closed, but close enough that it does not break grip force break fork.
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Good point, the DS grip has had it’s fair share of issues over the years. Heavenly Dipper & Sky lifts are also DS grips.
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Slide guide rod bushing and the snap ring for it have to be installed correctly and double checked. If the snap ring is missing or not correctly installed, the bushing can move and cause all kinds of havoc (like preventing secondary spring pack from engaging fully). This bulletin is over 25+ years old, knowledge not getting passed on to younger lift mechanics is a problem.
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Yes, Doppelmayr Bulletin CS21106_100 Issued 07/06/2021 seems to be the latest ?
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An Experience of a Lifetime for the new GM/COO at Heavenly
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Watched this same thing happen at Big Sky last year after the lift mechanic did something to get the lift started. Sounded like he overrode a safety sensor with a sledgehammer. Lift started, grip on the exiting chair was still open, it slid back into the one that had just loaded. Shedhorn lift.
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Any update yet? Heavenly has been quite on their social channels and has not really made an official statement to the general public or even acknowledged what happened (except for the statement they gave to Peter). I am guessing Comet will be closed indefinitely and maybe even the rest of the season. That would suck because the lines at Dipper will be massive. Hopefully they replace it next summer.
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They even took down the East Peak lodge camera which gives a clear view of the bottom terminals of Dipper and Comet. Clearly trying to hide what happened.
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That’s not proof of anything and there could be another explanation. Not everything is a conspiracy.
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DS GRIPS
Anyone operating DS grips should review Bulletin NO. I-47. Issued by Doppelmayr Wolfurt 02-15-1990.
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Would you please share a pdf of the bulletin via a link to Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar?
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