STRESA, Italy — The crash of a cable car near picturesque Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, killing 14 people, occurred after a cable snapped and an emergency brake failed, investigators said Monday. The cable car had almost reached the end station on Mottarone mountain, a nearly 5,000-foot peak, on Sunday afternoon when it suddenly started sliding backward. It slid for hundreds of meters at a height of nearly 40 feet, hitting a pillar and plunging to the ground. Hikers and local residents said they heard a hissing sound, presumably when the cable snapped and twisted through the air, and then a loud bang. “A cable broke and the car slid toward the valley without it being stopped by the braking system,” Olimpia Bossi, the lead prosecutor in the nearby city of Verbania, said in a phone interview.

Source: New York Times May 24, 2021 17:52 UTC