Company Says Its Ski Lift Didn’t Fail At Whistler

Thu., Dec. 28, 1995

Associated Press

The Nevada company that built a ski lift involved in a fatal accident at a Canadian resort is saying little about the investigation other than that it does not seem now that its equipment was at fault.

“Preliminary information provided to Lift Engineering appears to indicate that there was no equipment failure,” the company said in a terse statement sent by fax to news organizations.

Company founder and lift designer Jan Kunczynski of Glenbrook and a person who answered the telephone at the company’s headquarters in Carson City declined additional comment pending the conclusion of the investigation.

Saturday’s accident at Whistler Mountain in British Columbia killed one skier and injured nine others at the mountain 55 miles north of Vancouver.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, coroner’s service and the aerial tramways branch of British Columbia’s Transport Ministry were investigating along with Whistler Mountain officials and an engineer for the manufacturer.

Doug Forseth, president of Whistler Mountain Ski Corp., said witness reports indicate one of the chairs on the 1-1/4-mile long, high-speed Quicksilver Express broke loose in the accident.

It slid down the cable and crashed into the next chair before falling about 30 feet into brush and rocks. Three more chairs slid into each other and down the cable before reaching a tower, where they also fell.

Earlier this year, one chair fell off the lift during pre-season maintenance. The cause was never determined. The resort subsequently replaced all the grip mechanisms.

The Quicksilver Express, manufactured by Lift Engineering Ltd. of Carson City, is closed indefinitely, but the mountain remained open.

It was the most recent of five incidents over the past decade involving lifts made by the Nevada company, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported on Wednesday.

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