Mottarone cable car, prosecutor: “Failure ignored for money”

The broken towing cable is the “trigger of the tragedy” on the Mottarone cable car, but then there is a “conscious and disconcerting” behavior of those who preferred money to safety. Verbania’s prosecutor Olimpia Bossi is tried not only by the long interrogations that led to the arrest of an engineer, an operating chief and the manager of the cableway Luigi Nerini, but also by the discovery that “for weeks” anyone has set foot on that cable car was at risk. A “very disconcerting” choice that the three – now in prison for a circumstantial situation considered “serious” – have carried out in order to avoid an adequate repair of the braking system that probably would have led to a long closure of the plant, whose coffers had already been severely tested by the lockdown. “We were able to ascertain, in particular from the analysis of the photographic finds, that the crashed cabin had the emergency brake system tampered with, that is, it had not been removed or rather the ‘fork’ had been affixed ‘which keeps away the brake shoes that should have blocked the cable in case of breakage, “explains the prosecutor. A malfunction that the three ignore – there is an intervention on May 3, but then they close their eyes in front of other spies started since the reopening of April 26 – with the “belief that the cable would never be cut”. maintenance in May would have only partially solved the problem so to avoid further interruptions to the service, the three chose to circumvent the rules and prevent the emergency brake from coming into operation.So shortly before noon on Sunday 23 May that inertia on safety it costs the lives of 14 people. The three must answer for multiple manslaughter, negligent injury to a child (the only survivor) who was seriously injured and for the removal or willful omission of caution – punishes those who fail to place tools intended to prevent accidents – aggravated if a disaster results from the fact , as in this case. The number of suspects seems destined to grow shortly. The investigation must now also try to ascertain why that cable broke, kicking off the first step in a tragedy that could have been avoided.