The gondola at Kicking Horse, British Columbia suffered a serious incident this morning when a hanger snapped, causing a cabin with eight riders to fall to the ground. Thankfully the fully loaded carrier had just departed the bottom station and was approximately one meter off the ground. There were no serious injuries among affected passengers. Crews worked for hours to evacuate guests from the rest of the lift by rope and helicopter. It was a powder day with 23 centimeters falling in the previous 24 hours and the lift was reportedly quite full at the time of the incident.
“At 9:20 am, an incident occurred involving a cabin at the base terminal of Golden Eagle Express gondola,” a statement from the resort read. “Our patrol team and first responders were rapidly dispatched on scene,” the statement continued. “Our trained maintenance team will be working to unload the passengers as per standard operating procedures. A full inspection has been initiated to determinate and analyze root causes. Teams from the manufacturer and relevant authorities have been called in to further assist. No lifts will be open to the public today, the resort will be closed for the remainder of the day. Please note Golden Eagle Express gondola will remain closed until further notice. An update will be provided later today with regards to regular operations.”
The Golden Eagle Express was constructed by Leitner-Poma in 2000 and is a workhorse, operating daily in both winter and summer as well as nights. It’s one of the longest and tallest gondolas in North America with 55 cabins carrying skiers more than 3,500 vertical feet. Without the gondola, approximately 70 percent of the mountain cannot be accessed.
Technical Safety BC oversees passenger ropeways in the province and will conduct an inspection and investigation before the lift can be re-opened.
Update 8:00 pm: Kicking Horse reported all guests were safely evacuated from the lift by rope and helicopter by late in the day. “Our sincere apologies go out to every one of our guests who have had to go through this experience today, and we thank them all for their patience and understanding” said Richard Oszust, Area Manager. Kicking Horse will reopen the lower mountain tomorrow, serviced by the Catamount and Pioneer chairlifts. The gondola and upper mountain will remain closed until further notice.
Lift Blog 
Metal fatigue is scary. Are hangars and chairs/cabins NDTd like grips are? Or not really?
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They typically are.
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Yes. There is a multiple-page section in the manual describing methods of NDT as well as all areas you need to inspect.
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that’s one type of accident I hadn’t seen! Usually the majority of cases of chairs/gondolas falling come from grip errors like with the Flying Bear Attitash some time ago.
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This year just keeps getting better and better for North American lifts…..
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It has been a tough season for sure. Can’t blame it on politics like some would like to though. (please don’t try)
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Canadians
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@dudley
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There is absolutely no relation to this and the recent accident.
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it really has been a rough season
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KMHR and Revelstoke need much more redundancy in their lift network than they currently have if they want to continue on this upward trajectory. Revy is more of a bottleneck, while KHMR is an operational nightmare for a mountain that has so much to offer.
Start with a detachable for Pioneer and take it to the bottom terminal of Stairway.
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It would be nice if pioneer went detach but unfortunately RCR doesn’t invest in their resorts so it probably won’t happen anytime soon unless Kicking Horse is sold.
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I have skiied there a few times and could not believe how few cabins on the line – even midweek it was busy when the mountain was empty. Redundancy is needed but more Cabins also. I think both not happening comes down to not too much revenue and an ownership that, putitng it nicely, does not like spending money.
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rcr does everything it can to spend 0 dollars annually lol.
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That is plainly incorrect.
Does RCR have enough funds to build out? NO.
But does RCR have an excellent portfolio of resorts and still manage to offer an incredible experience? YES
Eventually, they will need to put capital, but I wouldn’t roast them just yet.
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Quebec shut down one of their resorts cuz their 1989 gondola was too deadly and not being maintained well enough.
I’m not saying they’re evil or don’t try or that they don’t have some great mountains, but I am openly asking: Does RCR have the budget to actually fund good maintenance practices? Until that’s answered publicly, I’m personally going to avoid any of their destinations.
And I think the recent frequency of serious incidents is enough to warrant that.
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…And that 1989 gondola is proposed to be replaced.
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And good operators already replaced their 1989 gondolas, or completely rebuilt them like Northstar.
Just accept RCR has underspent on its lifts.. it won’t get better until someone shows up to spend more.
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You are absolutely correct that RCR does not upgrade lifts enough, there is no denying about that. However, just because a gondola is from 1989, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be replaced. Plenty of resorts still operate older gondolas.
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And older gondolas and chairlifts require increased vigilance, effort, and dollars to keep them safe. Hours run and hours run at high capacity certainly play a role in parts life, even if it’s not the actual lift.
Considering that is literally what they found at MSA, I don’t see how that scrutiny shouldn’t apply to kicking horse. A similar question can be asked of Vail after Flying Bear was shone to be a result of a lack of proper maintenance. But Vail immediately said “hey you got us, we’re gonna reduce the capacity of this lift and only leave the more reliable hangers in service.” Not perfect, but as a skier I’d prefer that attitude to RCR’s which has historically been “nothing is our fault and we aren’t spending more”
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That is true, but MSA was the grips, KH is the hanger, so it is not as obvious from a maintenance perspective, but we still don’t know when the hanger started breaking so it might be possible that KH didn’t properly do it.
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High speed quad from the base of Pioneer up to the base of Stairway to Heaven. And probably an infill lift from the base of Stairway to Heaven up to Eagle’s Eye.
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Donald,
That side of CPR ridge is too steep for any lift there, if they want an upper mountain infill, they need to build a HSQ in Bowl Over.
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There was a plan for new stuff, but then the resort was sold to RCR. Look at page 111 of this document.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-and-industry/natural-resource-use/all-seasons-resorts/khmr-masterplan-march2009.pdf
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Just went through there and waitress night before said how rcr does lousy upgrades and is cheap on maintenance. was socked in and wet so only did lower mtn couple runs. Now glad didn’t venture up per her warning. agree on earlier message on revy needing second bottom lift as loved that area.
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Don,
I know for a fact that RCR is not “cheap on maintenance” and the maintenance teams from these resorts are very strong. Accidents happen and nobody wanted this to occur.
And yes, Revy is a wonderful hill.
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Guess my comment was too harsh. I’m sure maintenace crew is top notch. Waitress grew up in KH and mentioned about RCR cheap & New Years breakdown also. Mountain needs more lifts to supplement gondy. Am from corporate run Heavenly Ski area and have little to brag on operations here as cheap cheap cheap. Saw since a video of 2016 helicopter evac on KH gondy. Our gondy has never had that issue and just looks like a trend that’s all. Glad it happened near bottom lift for the occupants.
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well, that’s not something you see very often pretty much anywhere, let alone just North America.
When was the last time, anywhere, there was a hanger failure?
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Photo of the break:
Credit: Justin Baun via Instagram
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This doesn’t seem to have occurred at a sharp corner or weld. And this lift is relatively new. Do fatigue fractures routinely form on these sorts of hangers, or is the root cause of this some sort of manufacturing defect in the steel? I can’t imagine these cabins are subject to dramatically higher forces than any other lift’s.
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Hmmm I guess it’s 25 years old … but that’s still not crazy old
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25 years old AND a lot of extra time on it, as Peter mentioned it operates during the day and into the night summer and winter.
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“RED ALERT” For any of us that have been in the ski industry a long time the number of critical lift component failures this season has been alarming to say the least. Typically through annual, monthly and daily component inspections and testing. Cracks and component problems are discovered way before they approach the failure point. It appears in several cases this year the inspection process was not adequate, implemented correctly or other. Major life threating component failures of different parts the carrier assembly have occurred, Grips, Hangers, Carriage, Cabin or Chair. The morning all these incidents occurred someone signed the Pre-operational Inspection form stating that the lift is clear and ready for public operation. This includes all Carrier Assembly Components.
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I’m pretty sure an NDT inspection of the hanger arm is not part of the morning checks.
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Looks like it needs to be in there case.
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Brilliant, let’s take off every grip & hanger, every morning, and gettem x-ray’d. Then we’ll put em back on, all before 9:00 AM!
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that is not physically possible in any world. However metal fatigue like this isnt exactly the kind of thing that only begins to form in a year. This is the kind of thing that sounds like it should have been caught by NDT but wasn’t. My guess is that resorts are skimping out on routine checks of stuff like this. In the aviation industry more stringent rules on frequency of metal fatigue testing, at least for now, has dramatically reduced the number of fatigue related incidents. Maybe its time for something like this in regards to the ski industry.
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Interestingly enough, RCR is partnered with Vail Resorts
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I am no great fan of the Vailians but this is a partnership based solely on EPIC passholders getting “x” number of days at some RCR resorts. Vail has no say in annual or day-to-day operation.
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Only for full epic pass access…
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Ice /water ingress into the hanger arm/tube. Failure to drain. Then freeze thaw. Same principle as ice jacking on the Black Comb Gondi tower.
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Would that not split it lengthwise though? When pipes freeze they either pop out of 90′ bends or split lengthwise. Blackcomb Gondi kind of did the first if I remember as it ‘popped’ out at a weld joint between differnt segments (from memeory). This is across where there is no joint.
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Don you may be correct. I was hoping Aussie Rob would comment with his history at W/B. I thought it was the whole tower flange weld that failed. I am just throwing out a completely random theory with the KH failure. I have some history with many lifts but that one in particular. So thankful everyone is ok!
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I thought I posted a reply to this last night. You are correct that the welded flange was forced off the end of the tower tube by the ice. I have a photo somewhere but can’t find it here at home.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/whistler-blackcomb-received-safety-alert-prior-to-gondola-collapse-1.700292
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So apparently noted Okanagan enginerd AvE is a fan of liftblog. https://youtu.be/g5txInjIGWc?si=XZX25a5i4DKZyP_V
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better inspect those stems!
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KHMR update, the gondola will be shut down for the next week and possibly even the week after, KH pass holders can ski free at Nakiska, Kimberley and Fernie in the meantime. It is not that practical in my opinion because Panorama and Lake Louise are much closer than other RCR resorts.
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