On Friday, emergency crews were able to rescue more than 100 people- including several American tourists-trapped in cable cars over the French Alps due to a technical malfunction.
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Local officials said all of the 110 people who were trapped in cable cars 12,000 feet above mountainous terrain in eastern France were rescued early Friday.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t untangle the third cable so, as it was getting late, we decided, in accordance with procedure, to call the police helicopter to evacuate as many people as we could before night fell”, he said.
A rescue helicopter near three of the stranded cable cars.
Italian rescuers enter “Skyway”, the Mont Blanc cable vehicle, during a rescue operation on September 9, 2016, in Courmayeur.
The cable auto, which offers spectacular up-close views of Western Europe’s tallest mountains and deep valleys below, connects the Aiguille de Midi peak in France, at 3,842 meters (12,605 feet), to Pointe Helbronner in Italy, at 3,462 meters (11,358 feet).
“Helicopters had to delicately fly over the cable, which is risky itself, then lower a rescuer on to an area ‘not larger than a table, ‘ strap on passengers one by one and extract them, he said, describing it as ‘air surgery'”.
So they switched to “Plan B”, Fournier said. They included a 7-year-old and 9-year-old from Korea and a 10-year-old Italian child.
Most people were evacuated from the cars via helicopter and by a rescue team yesterday, but 33 people were left overnight because the chopper couldn’t operate in the dark. “It was a unusual experience, but they were warm under blankets and with their families”.
The incident was caused by cables that got crossed for “unknown reasons”, but a gust of wind is thought to have played a part, said Mathieu Dechavanne, boss of the Mont-Blanc Company which manages the system.
The cable vehicle journey normally takes 30-35 minutes.
“The panoramic cable cars rise to an altitude of 12,000 feet, and are operated in the summer season with large numbers of tourists and climbers”, Eleanor says.
Officials checked in regularly with the trapped passengers, who used survival kits housed within each cabin containing blankets, water and cereal bars.
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The incident comes five years after about 40 people were stuck for almost seven hours on the Grande-Motte cable auto in the south-eastern French Alps after it broke down.
