Their return to land ended an extraordinarily complex and vertiginous rescue effort over two days amid the spectacular but unsafe landscape of Western Europe’s tallest mountains.
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The travelers were brought to Chamonix and the Italian town of Courmayeur.
The mountain rescue service in the French city of Chamonix said cables that had become entangled Thursday were repaired, and the cable cars were able to resume operation Friday morning.
The rescue proved hard, as helicopter pilots needed to descend without getting the propellers caught in the cables.
Helicopters had to fly cautiously over the cable, lower a rescuer, strap on passengers one by one and extract them. The rescue team of five, which operated on Thursday night, included three French and two Italian police officers and one of the managed to reach inside the auto. This is when mountain guides used ropes to carry an additional 12 passengers to a glacier below, once again, one-by-one. The passengers were then escorted by foot to the nearest mountain station.
The president of the company which runs the cable cars explained that the incident was caused when a tow cable crossed over the main support cable in three places.
“We were old enough, we had experience in mountain conditions but for them it was a little bit more complicated with their children, seven and nine years old, that anxious us”, he said.
Louis’ brother Clement, 24, told reporters how they had to shout to a Korean family in the cable vehicle next to theirs to explain to them where to find the blankets.
Reports also state that those people who remained trapped in the cars had access to emergency blankets, bottles of water and energy bars in the cart.
“The helicopter rescue failed because the fog moved in, so we had to just wait and then they decided they could bring us safely to the ground, and we walked up the glacier to the hut”, Cook continued.
The remaining trapped passengers were finally rescued Friday morning and brought to Chamonix, France, and Courmayeur, Italy.
The five-kilometer-long (three mile) system, which went into operation in 1950, connects Aiguille du Midi on the French side of the mountains with Pointe Helbronner on the Italian border, offering panoramic views of Mont Blanc. The three-mile (5km) journey usually takes about 30 minutes to complete. The first two sections of cable cars were expected to reopen at approximately 10 a.m. local time this morning, but the third section, where the tourists were stranded, is still being cleared for use and will likely not be open again for 24 hours.
The Vallee Blanche Cable Car is operated in the summer season, when large numbers of climbers and tourists converge on the area.
Another series of cable cars takes skiers and visitors to the peak of the Aiguille de Midi year-round.
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The terraces of Aiguille du Midi, which is nearly 12,400 feet high, offer a 360-degree view of the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.
