Laax Completes Internal Investigation Into Cable Car Incident

The Weisse Arena Gruppe's internal investigation into the cable car incident on January 5, 2022 has been closed for the time being. The reason for the event is a chain of errors. The passengers were never endangered to life or limb.

On January 5, 2022, an incident occurred on the cable car that runs from Laax Murschetg to the Crap Sogn Gion. The gondola traveling towards the mountain station first came into contact with trees near Larnags. The load barelle attached to the gondola then touched the snow or the ground as the journey continued. The Lastbarelle did not lose any loaded goods and was only slightly damaged. There was no actual impact with the ground. The nacelle driver stopped the nacelle immediately when he noticed the grazing of the snow cover. The sudden stop caused some of the 35 passengers to fall. A passenger injured her finger slightly.

The Weisse Arena Group places the highest demands on the safety of all facilities as well as on the training of the staff. 60 million francs have been invested in new systems in the last 10 years. New plants will be built next year for around 80 million Swiss francs. The existing systems have been modernized in the last 5 years for a total of 9 million Swiss francs. This shows that the safety of the passengers has the highest priority at the Weisse Arena Gruppe. For this reason, the company immediately did everything possible to clarify the reasons for the incident.

Too much weight on the load barelle

On January 5, 2022, in addition to the official information to the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) and in addition to the investigations by the criminal authorities and the Swiss Safety Investigation Board (SUST), a comprehensive internal investigation was immediately initiated. According to these findings, the reason for the incident is a chain of human errors. These resulted in an overload for operation with a load suspended from the bottom of the nacelle. This enabled the load barelle to touch the ground. The errors in detail:

• Both gondolas of the cable car each have a built-in load measuring system, which displays the height of the entire payload and sounds an alarm in the event of an overload. In December, the load measuring system in a nacelle had to be deactivated due to its persistent malfunction. Passenger transport is also permitted without such a system, which is why operations continued normally. However, such a system is mandatory for transport journeys with an underload. Due to the fact that there were no internal instructions that transport journeys may only be made with the gondola with an intact system, the corresponding journey was made at all.
• The second error in the chain happened when loading the load barelle. When loading weight stones, the machine operator mistakenly assumed that such a stone weighed 500 kilograms. In fact, however, it weighs one ton, which, when loaded with six such stones, resulted in an overweight of 3 tons or a total weight of 10.4 tons. The permissible total weight of the gondola for passenger transport was not exceeded, ie the cable car is mechanically designed for such loads. Since the aerial cableway travels around 2 meters above the ground at a few points when fully loaded due to the length profile and the load barelle hangs around 2.4 meters below the gondola floor, a payload of 7.5 tons must not be exceeded for transports with load barelles.
• As the last link in the chain, the gondola operator could have prevented the event. Because the load measurement was not intact, he had no way of recognizing the overload before departure. But when he touched the first trees with the gondola and the underload, he should have stopped driving or at least sent a radio message. Instead, he continued to drive until the underload touched the ground. Noticing this, he reacted very well by immediately activating the emergency stop.

No danger for the passengers

As part of the internal investigation, the Weisse Arena Gruppe, together with the track manufacturer Garaventa, checked whether this event could have had potentially serious consequences. Neither a direct contact of the gondola with the ground, nor a derailment of the vehicle, nor a tear in the traction or carrying cable were assessed as realistic scenarios. In any case, there would be further safeguards to prevent these catastrophe scenarios. All these backup systems worked and work perfectly. Against this background, it can be stated that, to the best of human judgement, there was never a danger to the passengers that went beyond the overturning due to the emergency stop.

Various measures taken immediately

The Weisse Arena Gruppe took immediate measures immediately after the incident. Since the incident and until all investigations have been completed, no transport journeys have been carried out with persons and underload. At the request of the Weisse Arena Gruppe, the manufacturer of the track, Garaventa, checked all the systems on the relevant track as a precautionary measure on the day after the event and found no defects. The manufacturer of the defective load measuring system - which is not required by law for personal operation - will repair it on January 20, 2022. The personnel, namely the gondola drivers and machinists, were informed of all the facts about the incident. As a precaution, all relevant systems of all railways in the entire ski area are checked again.

A comprehensive external security audit is commissioned as a medium-term measure. This examines whether, despite the existing extensive security precautions, there are still security gaps in the systems approved by the authorities. The audit is also intended to show where additional security can be created with supplementary systems. The education and training of the employees, the training material, the communication and emergency plans and the internal organization are also checked.

Full cooperation with the criminal authorities and the STSB

In its own interest, the Weisse Arena Gruppe has been working fully and transparently with the Graubünden authorities and the Swiss Security Investigation Board (SUST) since the day of the event. The incident was reported to the Federal Office of Transport on the day of the incident. The findings from the internal investigation will be shared with the authorities as part of the ongoing investigations.

Extraordinary regrets

"We extremely regret what happened on January 5 and apologize to the passengers in full," says Markus Wolf, CEO of the Weisse Arena Gruppe. «We immediately did everything possible to find the possible reasons for the incident. We are convinced that an open error culture enables everyone to learn. Therefore, we have decided to publicly announce the results of the internal investigation immediately after its completion.