THREE ARRESTED OVER DEADLY CABLE CAR DISASTER
Italy’s police arrested three men on Wednesday over a cable car crash that killed 14 people, saying the emergency brake system had been deactivated to overcome a fault.
On Sunday the gondola on a cable way connecting the northern town of Stresa, on the shores of Lake Maggiore, to the nearby Mottarone mountain plunged to the ground, killing all aboard apart from a five-year-old Israeli boy who remains in hospital.
The bodies of five other victims from Israel — a young couple, their child and their grandparents — were being sent home on Wednesday.
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into suspected involuntary manslaughter and negligence.
Carabinieri Lt. Col. Alberto Cicognani told broadcaster RAI the suspects admitted that a forkshaped clamp had been placed on the safety brake system, preventing it from operating as it should.
The cable car had not been working properly, with the brakes constantly kicking in.
The clamp would stop them from activating, allowing the cable car to keep functioning.
“With the conviction that the cable car would never break, (the men) took the risk which determined the deadly outcome,” Olimpia Bossi, the chief prosecutor of the city of Verbania, told reporters.
A Carabinieri official in Verbania told Reuters those arrested were the manager of Ferrovie Mottarone, the company that manages the cable way, its director, and the manager of the cable way.
It was still unclear why the lead cable snapped.