Mountain rescue crews used helicopters to remove those trapped one by one, but the operation was suspended at nightfall on Thursday, leaving about 30 people to spend the night suspended next to Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps.
Advertisement
The cars stopped working after cables got crossed. 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 unsafe to continue the airborne mission. Helicopters had to fly over the cable, which was risky in itself and then lower the rescue team to an area “not larger than a table”.
The post Tourists Rescued After Being Trapped In Cable Cars Overnight appeared first on 360Nobs.com. “It was a unusual experience, but they were warm under blankets and with their families”.
The remaining 33 people trapped overnight in cable cars over Europe’s highest mountain brought to safety, the ride’s operator says.
“We were there for nearly 10 hours in the cable car” an American tourist, Kathy Cook explained, she was among the first group of people to be lowered to the ground. An aerial view shows three of the cars on Friday.
“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.
People who spent a night in cable cars are escorted by rescuers before being brought to the ground in Courmayeur.
Sixty people are stranded overnight after being trapped inside a cable vehicle in eastern France more than 3,000 metres above sea level.
Rescue workers had stayed with the remaining passengers overnight, police said.
The cable auto 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. Employees of the Mont-Blanc company were unable to fix them, according to its chief executive, Mathieu Dechavanne. The panoramic ride over glaciers usually takes 30 minutes to complete.
Advertisement
The Mont Blanc cable vehicle linking the Aiguille du Midi peak to the Helbronner peak in Italy. The passengers were then flown by helicopter to Chamonix and the Italian town of Courmayeur.
