Two British tourists were among four people who died when a cable car crashed onto the ground near Naples, southern Italy.
Prosecutors at Torre Annunziata have launched an investigation into possible manslaughter charges after Thursday’s crash at Montefito, the peak of about 28 miles (45km) southeast of Naples.
The British victims have been identified as 58-year-old Margaret Elaine Wynn and Graeme Derek Wynn, 65, reported by Italian news agency ANSA.
The other victim was Janan Sliman, a 25-year-old Arab woman with Israeli citizenship. Her brother, Thaeb Suliman, 23, was hospitalized at Ponticelli, who was seriously injured. The hospital said Friday morning that he remains “stable with the seriousness” of his injuries and will undergo further testing.
The fourth deceased person was a cable car operator, and was named Carmaine Palato in his hometown.
Cable car service operated two cabins. The crash was climbing the mountain, but 16 people were saved from a hut that had stopped halfway through and stopped in the air near the peak’s feet. They evacuated one by one using harnesses, footage from RAI public television, and footage shown by other media.
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Italian media reported that one of the cables supporting the cabin had snapped. According to a report on Friday, the cable car service, which opened 10 days ago during the spring and summer seasons, had a maintenance check a week ago.
“The cabin at the top has crashed,” Umberto de Gregorio, chairman of EAV, a public transport company that operates cable car services, called it “tragedy.”
Vincenzo de Luca, head of the Campania region around Naples, told Rai that fog and strong winds that reached 60 mph (100 km/h) on Thursday were hampering rescue operations.
According to reports, people heard loudly before the cable car fell.
“We had really harsh weather conditions so we can imagine what happened at 1,500 meters above sea level,” De Luca said. “But again, technical checks must be done at the utmost rigour.”
The last deadly cable car crash in Italy was in 2021, but 14 people died in a cable car connecting the resort town of Stresa and Mount Mottarone in the Piedmont region to a forest near Lake Magiore.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was informed of Thursday’s crash at a summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington. She expressed her “expressing the deepest sadness of the dolphins” to the families of those who were killed and injured.
Fight Cable Car Service was launched in 1952. In 1960, four people, including a nine-year-old child, died after the pylon broke, Naples reported.
