A cabin fell from a gondola lift in Engelberg, Switzerland this morning, killing the lone occupant. The incident happened on the upper section of the two stage Titlis Xpress, a Garaventa UNI-G system constructed in 2015. More than 100 other passengers were safely unloaded from the lift’s 159 remaining cabins. Swiss media reported a race scheduled to take place nearby was canceled earlier in the morning due to high winds.
Disturbing video from a bystander showed the detached cabin tumble down a steep cliff, ejecting the passenger along the way. The victim was later identified as a 61 year old woman from the area. At a press conference, Titlis Bergbahnen CEO Norbert Patt expressed regret for the accident and noted the company will fully support a government investigation. He said the gondola is regularly maintained to the highest standards. The lift has a wind alarm programmed for 40 km/hr (25 miles per hour) with a wind warning/shutdown occurring at 60 km/hr (37 miles per hour). The Titlis Xpress utilizes CWA Omega IV cabins and Doppelmayr DT-108 grips used widely throughout the world, including in North America.
Lift Blog 
A truly devastating event. Ironically that’s not the first DT Grip to detach from the haulrope in operation.
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interesting, I wonder if agamatic/d-line grips solve whatever fault caused this.
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Pretty sure the D-line grip is also not designed with hitting towers in high winds in mind
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well thats really worrying, especially considering that its a modern system. I wonder if there being only one occupant had anything to do with it, a full cabin probably would not have shaken as much in any prospective wind.
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This accident is truly tragic. I’m surprised about the DT grip failing. I thought they were quite robust.
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The grip may not of failed in a structural sense?? But it could have been plucked off the rope due to impact with tower machinery or an impact caused it to open?? The DT grip is an over center type grip. Lot’s of possibilities at this point.
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Another report I saw suggested the winds were 80 kph when this happened, which begs the question how the lift was even running if a 60 kph wind is supposed to trigger a shutdown .
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Wind shutdowns are the same as hitting a stop button. You can absolutely reset and run. The idea is to make the operators aware of conditions, so that they can take appropriate action- whether that is calling maintenance to second-guess (as we do) or following written procedures to unload the lift. My guess, given the more stringent regulations over there, is that they were running to clear the line. Regardless, it’s a tragic accident.
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It will be interesting to see what the line speed was at the time of the incident. Steamboat’s gondola has wind sensors which automatically slow the lift to a crawl when gusts reach x speed.
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Correct, many have that feature too. It’s a good thing.
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Out of curiosity, what exactly does slowing down the lift in the wind help with?
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Running a lift on slow helps with any unintended contact, carrier to tower, terminal and grip to sheave assembly components. Due to a carrier swinging in the wind. Typical swing clearance to line tower components is 19 degrees for that type of lift.
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The gondola got hit by a wind gust and hit the lift pylon and seems to been stuck for a second, long enough to rip the gondola off from the cable. One of our friends was in the gondola in front and saw the whole thing. He was stuck then for 3.5 hrs until they moved all the gondolas back to the station
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I know the 6 pack bubble i worked on to get the chairs to stop swinging near the top terminal we would run the chair on slow till the grip got to the sheave train and then stop it and the chair would stop swinging after a few second of the grip being on the sheave train and then we would restart the lift.
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