Italian cable car crash: New harrowing footage show moment car shoots down mountain before killing 14 on board
HORRIFIC new footage has emerged of the Italian cable car tragedy, showing the moment the car shoots down the mountain.
The footage show just how close the 15 passengers inside the car were to safety, before the cabin shot down a mountain to its demise.
It was thrown 500m down a mountain by Lake Maggiore, killing 14 people, when a cable snapped and brakes failed.
The catastrophic events, which took place around 12pm on May 23, lasted around 30 seconds and began as the car neared the summit and resulted in it shooting towards a pylon. It then flew into the air before it smashed into the ground.
Two new videos of the tragedy have now emerged; footage recorded from inside and outside the cable car station and released by Italian media.
The footage shot from inside shows the carriage was just feet away from arriving at the station when the cable snapped, sending the car and its passengers inside careening back down the mountain.
The sightseers inside are looking out the window at the incredible sights.
An engineer can be seen in the station preparing for the arrival of the carriage when it slows, and a second later, jerks backwards, bouncing away from the station.
He stands still, seemingly in disbelief, for a moment, before running frantically around the station, unsure what to do about the unfolding disaster.
The second video, shot outside the station, shows the car as it careened down the cables at 60mph, before crashing and the bottom and leaving all but one of its passengers dead.
A five-year-old boy from Israel, Eitan Biran, is the only survivor.
His mother and father, younger brother and great-grandparents were all killed, as were several other couples who were passengers in the car.
Images from the crash site, near the top of the Stresa-Mottarone line in the Piedmont region of the western Alps showed the crumpled car lying in a clearing of a thick patch of pine trees near the summit of the Mottarone peak.
The Italian authorities have now begun an investigation as more details emerge about what might have happened.
The cars carrying tourists are hauled by a cable up to the top of the mountain from the town of Stresa and rest on another cable for support.
The car was near the final station, where visitors are able to get a panoramic view of the surrounding mountains.
Each gondola has a capacity of 40 people but due to Covid restrictions there were less than half that on board.
Heartbreaking details about those who died have emerged since the horror accident.
Five-year-old Eitan Biran's father Amit Biran, 30, and his 26-year-old wife Tal Peleg-Biran died along with their other son Tom Biran, aged two, and her grandparents in the tragedy.
The family lived in northern Italy, and her grandparents Barbara and Yitzhak Cohen, who were aged 71 and 81, were visiting from Tel Aviv.
A doctor sent a last message to her sister to say she was boarding a cable car in northern Italy – an hour before it plunged 20 metres to the ground, killing 14.
Roberta Pistolato, who has been working on the frontline of Italy's battle against Covid, died in the tragedy as she celebrated her 40th birthday with her boyfriend Angelo Gasparro, 45.
Shortly before the horror, believed to have happened when a cable snapped near the summit of the 4,900ft mountain, Ms Pistolato texted her sister: "We're getting on the cable car."
Vittorio Zorloni, 55, and his 37-year-old partner Elisabetta Personini were killed along with and their five-year-old son Mattia.
The couple, who were due to get married next month, were killed instantly when the car hit the ground and their son died in hospital in Turin.
The accident also claimed the lives of Serena Cosetino, 27, a scientific researcher, and her 30-year-old boyfriend Mohammed Reza Shahisavandi, an Iranian student, who also worked in a bar in Rome.
Engaged couple Silvia Malnati 27, and Alessandro Merlo, 29, were also among those who died.
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