Cable Car Victims in Italian Crash Were British And Israeli Tourists
Italian officials said on Friday that two British tourists and an Arab woman with Israeli citizenship were among the four people killed in a cable car crash south of Naples on Thursday. The Italian driver of the cable car also died.
The cable car fell when it was about 20 seconds from reaching a station located on a scenic plateau on Monte Faito, according to Luigi Vicinanza, the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, the seaside town he car departed from. The plateau offers breathtaking views of the Gulf of Naples and Mount Vesuvius.
The only survivor, the Israeli woman's brother, was in critical condition on Friday in a Naples hospital.
An official with the prefecture in Naples identified the British tourists as Elaine Margaret Winn and Graeme Derek Winn, and identified the Israeli woman as Janan Suleiman. Her brother, identified as Thabet Suleiman, was injured.
Mayor Vicinanza called the accident 'tragic.' He added that family members of the Israeli siblings were expected to arrive in Italy later on Friday.
Mr. Vicinanza said the cable car fell after a traction cable snapped, blocking both the cabin near the peak, and another cable car near the Castellammare station. The nine people trapped in the lower car were rescued by firefighters using harnesses. Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.
'It's far too soon to tell what happened,' said Antonello De Luca, a professor of engineering at the University of Naples, who testified as an expert witness in a trial involving a 2021 cable car crash in Italy. 'Technical investigations on disasters of this kind can take years.'
In the 2021 disaster, 14 people were killed when a cable car crashed near the top of a mountain in the northwestern region of Piedmont, Italy. The cause was determined to be a snapped cable and an emergency brake failure. Five members of an Israeli family died in that accident.
Mr. De Luca said that, based on the kind of aerial cableway system operating at Monte Faito, it was possible that after a traction cable broke, 'the emergency brake system failed to stop the cabin for unknown reasons.'
The cabin plummeted and tumbled down the mountainside. After the accident, firefighters removed pieces of the traction cable that had fallen on a local railway and onto the roof of a house, according to a statement by the firefighters.
Mr. De Luca said such cable car systems were typically subject to rigorous maintenance.
The driver of the cable car was identified as Carmine Parlato.
Umberto de Gregorio chairman of EAV, the public transportation company that manages the cable car, described Mr. Parlato as an 'extraordinary person' who loved working for the company. Mr. Parlato was the brother of Mr. de Gregorio's driver.
'I knew him well,' he said.
Far less famous than its neighbor Pompeii, Castellammare draws tourists for its archaeological park and archaeological museum, as well as its convenient location near Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.
'The cableway system was very popular among citizens and tourists,' Mr. Vicinanza said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Vicinanza declared Friday a day of mourning in the municipality and canceled nonreligious Easter weekend events, including a concert on Sunday.
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