Clamping Device Possible Cause Of Ski Lift Accident

Mon., Dec. 25, 1995

From Wire Reports

A ski lift accident that killed one person and injured at least nine others apparently was caused by failure of a clamping device.

Other skiers were suspended up to four hours in the dark on swaying chairs before they were rescued Saturday night.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Derel Little said officers were investigating one report of skiers bouncing and swinging chairs before the accident.

The accident apparently resulted from a failure in the clamping device in the last of the four chairs that fell, causing it to shoot down the cable and produce a chain-reaction crashes with chairs in front of it, said Doug Forseth, president of Whistler Mountain Ski Corp.

Police identified the dead skier as Trevor Michael John MacDonald, 25, of Vancouver. RCMP said nine were hurt but the resort said in a news release 11 were injured.

Saturday’s fatality was the first involving a lift system.

By daybreak Sunday, investigators for the coroner’s office, RCMP, the provincial government’s aerial tramways branch and the resort were examining the Quicksilver Express, a lift on which each chair can take four skiers.

The 1-1/4-mile-long lift takes skiers to another station 2,135 vertical feet above the base of the resort, which attracts skiers from around the world.

The accident happened about 3 p.m. Saturday, when 6,000 skiers jammed the resort about 54 miles north of Vancouver.

The rescue operation ended just after 7:30 p.m. Saturday. xxxx

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Clamping Device Possible Cause Of Ski Lift Accident

Jesse Tinsley

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