The 49-year-old father was critically injured and received intensive care in the Innsbruck clinic. According to previous information from the police, a tree fell on the anchorage of the gondola, causing the father (49), son (20), daughter (19) and uncle (46) to fall seven to ten meters into the depths.
A total of six people were probably injured in the accident, said Imst district police commander Hubert Juen in an interview with APA. Two German citizens who were in the neighboring gondola were injured by the vibrations of the support cable – which did not break. The extent of her injury was not known.
Video: Gondola crashed in Tyrol
The exact cause of the accident and what happened were still the subject of investigations in the afternoon. “But there is nothing to indicate a technical or human error,” Juen said. Experts are now on the move; the ministry’s cable car authority has already started its work.
The rescue of the seriously injured people may have been difficult because the crash site in the middle of the cable car was on “relatively impassable terrain” in the forest, said a spokesman for the mountain railway company. The railway was temporarily taken out of service due to the incident. In any case, an inspection trip was carried out in the morning – there were no abnormalities. After the rescue, two of the injured were taken to the Innsbruck clinic and the Zams hospital.
Image: ZOOM.TIROL (APA)
The other guests were informed via the railway’s loudspeaker systems and were on the mountain or back in the valley around midday, the company said. Michaela Burger from Bergbahnen Hochoetz spoke to the “Kurier” (online report) of a “dramatic” accident. It is actually “highly unlikely” that a gondola would crash in such a case. “Experts have to clarify how this could have happened,” she said, adding that it wasn’t windy.
Image: ZOOM.TIROL (APA)
