The Mont Blanc cable vehicle that joins Aiguille du Midi with Punta Helbronner that broke yesterday afternoon was fixed this morning and the remaining 33 of 100 trapped passengers were safely transported to Punta Helbronner. At 7:46 this morning the cable cars started moving agin. About 60 were rescued through the evening, thanks to emergency helicopters who lowered crew members to extract passengers one by one from the cable cars, but once night fell it became too risky to continue the airborne mission.
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The ordeal began on Thursday afternoon when cables on the Panoramic Mont Blanc cable auto service got twisted, trapping 110 people in a string of cars at altitudes of up to 3,800 metres (12,500ft).
This cable auto between Aiguille du Midi and Punta Helbronner has been operating since the 1950’s and on 16 August 1988 was subject to one of the most famous Mountain Wilderness protests which notably included Reinhold Messner.
“The extent of this rescue operation is simply unbelievable”, said Col. Frederic Labrunye, commander of the provincial gendarmerie group of Haute-Savoie.
“For two and a half hours we didn’t know what had happened and the cable vehicle was moving a lot when they were trying to untangle the cables”.
But as darkness fell and the weather deteriorated, the operation was suspended, leaving the remaining tourists, one of them a 12-year-old boy, to spend the night suspended in mid-air.
“We were there nearly 10 hours in the cable auto”, American tourist Kathy Cook told The Associated Press.
Four helicopters plucked 65 passengers from the dangling cars, while another 12 managed to descend to the ground by rope, with the aid of rescuers.
The trapped passengers had access to emergency blankets, energy bars and bottles of water, which are stocked aboard the cars.
“The helicopter rescue failed because the fog moved in, so we had to just wait and then they decided they could relay us safely to the ground, and we walked up the glacier to the hut”, she said upon arrival in Courmayeur.
The 33 remaining passengers were able to reach the ground by exiting the cars at three points on the way down, an official said.
The cable vehicle ride, which offers spectacular views of western Europe’s tallest mountains and deep valleys below, connects the Aiguille du Midi peak in France, at 3,842 metres, to Pointe Helbronner in Italy, at 3,462 metres. The Panoramic Cable Car is operated in the summer season, when large numbers of climbers and tourists converge on the area.
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The cable auto journey normally takes 30-35 minutes. Almost 110 people were initially stranded in the cable cars near the Chamonix ski resort after the cars stalled due to tangled cables. Another series of cable cars takes skiers and visitors to the peak of the Aiguille de Midi year-round.
