Director and chief engineer detained after deadly cable car accident on Mount Elbrus
The director and chief engineer of the Mir–Garabashi chairlift on Mount Elbrus, where an accident claimed the lives of three people, have been detained. A criminal case has been opened in connection with the incident.
The accident occurred on Friday. Passengers were in the lift chairs when the system failed. Rescuers managed to evacuate about 40 people who had become stranded some four metres above the ground. Among them were tourists from Belarus and the Russian regions of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. Three passengers died and another 12 were injured.
According to local media, two of the deceased were workers, testing the cable car, while the third was a mountaineer. TASS wrote that the dead included a married couple from Tyrnyauz, Kabarda-Balkaria — a local man born in 1960 and his wife from Daghestan born in 1990 — and a Moscow resident born in 1967.
The regional branch of the Investigative Committee said the detention of the director and chief engineer of MKD Elbrus, the company operating the lift, was part of an investigation into the causes of the accident and compliance with safety requirements during its operation. The technical facilities of the cable car have been sealed off, and the lift’s operation suspended while the investigation is under way.
The two managers face charges of providing services that did not meet safety requirements and resulted in the death and injury of citizens through negligence. They are facing up to ten years in prison.
The Investigative Committee has not disclosed the names of those detained, but open sources identifed the director of MKD Elbrus as Akhmat Zalikhanov.
As reported by the Emergency Situations Ministry, the cable car was scheduled for maintenance between 2–24 September in preparation for the winter season.
Kabarda–Balkaria’s Head, Kazbek Kokov, said the preliminary cause of the accident was an ‘incident with the lift cable’. According to him, a metal cable slipped from the roller of one of the pylons, though the exact reason for the malfunction has not yet been established.
The operating company has so far made no official statement, with the investigation ongoing. The cable car will remain closed until technical inspections and investigative procedures are completed.
Some of the climbers, many of whom were attempting their first ascent of Elbrus, were evacuated from the lift and had to spend the night on the mountain. Guides forbade them to descend on foot after the breakdown. As a result, they were forced to stay overnight in huts without warm clothing, with night-time temperatures dropping to minus five degrees Celsius. In the morning, they were brought down to a safer altitude in trucks.
The Mir–Garabashi cable car was commissioned in 1981. The Garabashi station, at an altitude of 3,847 metres above sea level, is the highest point accessible by chairlift on Elbrus. According to technical documentation, the cable car has a capacity of around 200 passengers per hour. The route is part of the lift system connecting the Azau glade, the Mirstation, and Garabashi, and is widely used by tourists and mountaineers on the southern slope of Elbrus.
OC Media
