# Whistler gondola tower snapped!



## Vlaze (Nov 12, 2008)

Yup, just saw that on msn myself and was gonna post it, ya beat me to it!


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## Perpetual3am (Nov 19, 2007)

I just heard about this on the news, thankfully everyone is rescued. I would never in my life think that one of those could snap. I really hope it was a freak thing and not because there was a maintenance issue that was overlooked.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

Fuck that shit, they just opened that new peak-to-peak gondola. If that shit breaks everyone is fucking dead. 


They probably put all their money into the new gondola and abandoned regular maintenance on the older ones.


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## Random Hero (Sep 30, 2008)

The company that made the gondolas for them are idiots, a few years back the clamping system on the gondolas failed. One gondola ended up sliding down the line and hit another gondola. I think after that they both slid down and hit another one until one finally fell off the line. I think four people ended up dieing because of it.

It was found that the company that made the gondolas fucked up and ended up getting sued I believe because of it. I guess they never bothered to replace them.

I'm just glad I didn't go this year, I've been going out west for the past two years and couldn't afford it this year. Kinda glad it worked out that way after hearing about the conditions and now this.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

I hope they did not use the same contractors for the new gondola. 



Here is a short clip cnn posted on their site.

Passengers saved from dangling gondolas after tower snaps - CNN.com


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## rgrwilco (Oct 15, 2007)

Random Hero said:


> The company that made the gondolas for them are idiots, a few years back the clamping system on the gondolas failed. One gondola ended up sliding down the line and hit another gondola. I think after that they both slid down and hit another one until one finally fell off the line. I think four people ended up dieing because of it.
> 
> It was found that the company that made the gondolas fucked up and ended up getting sued I believe because of it. I guess they never bothered to replace them.
> 
> I'm just glad I didn't go this year, I've been going out west for the past two years and couldn't afford it this year. Kinda glad it worked out that way after hearing about the conditions and now this.


im pretty sure that incident was on a HSQ made by an american manufacturer. forget the details


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## zakk (Apr 21, 2008)

I'm a bit spooked after this, I gotta say. I've never ready about something like this in the States, and it sound like this had happened once before in Canada...


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## Jenzo (Oct 14, 2008)

zakk said:


> I'm a bit spooked after this, I gotta say. I've never ready about something like this in the States, and it sound like this had happened once before in Canada...


Uh huh, except for the fact the maker of that gondola is American, typical American thinking.

Honestly though we got off to a slow start in the west, it is UNFREAKING BELIEVABLE out here now, on sat I spent the day in waist deep pow on so called groomed runs! Totally awesome.

Glad no one was hurt on the gondola though.


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## Flick Montana (Jul 9, 2007)

I'm not afraid to admit that I am a little afraid of heights. I rode one of those gondolas this summer when I was in Whistler village. Now, I'll have to try to keep that out of my head every time I am on a chair lift. 

I mean, come on, is it really so much to ask that every chair is equipped with a parachute or some sort of fast deploying air-bag cushioning system like the Mars rovers? :laugh:


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## Random Hero (Sep 30, 2008)

Well I don't think its fair to our American friends to say that its becuase it was designed by an American. We have to realize that idiots come from all over the world and in all types of colours, races, backgrounds etc...


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## Jenzo (Oct 14, 2008)

Flick Montana said:


> I'm not afraid to admit that I am a little afraid of heights. I rode one of those gondolas this summer when I was in Whistler village. Now, I'll have to try to keep that out of my head every time I am on a chair lift.
> 
> I mean, come on, is it really so much to ask that every chair is equipped with a parachute or some sort of fast deploying air-bag cushioning system like the Mars rovers? :laugh:


lol, try riding the one in Revelstoke.. it goes right over a jagged boulder field.

However the scariest chair ever has to be that Whistler peak chair, ug.. plus the fact that someone died there before when a chair broke, or ended up paralyzed, or something along those lines.


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## Jenzo (Oct 14, 2008)

Random Hero said:


> Well I don't think its fair to our American friends to say that its becuase it was designed by an American. We have to realize that idiots come from all over the world and in all types of colours, races, backgrounds etc...


Indeed... but he was "blaming Canada".

Well time for bed its snowing like mad here gotta get up thar irly. :laugh:


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

Wow, I rode that gondola back in April. 

Chairlifts and gondolas are designed with a safety factor. I would think its either a 2 or higher. This means that with full capacity, all of the associated equipment is at only 50% of its design forces/load if you have a safety factor of 2. Those towers are made to support manily a compression load (downward force) and a minimal sideways force from primarily wind. I find it hard to imagine the amount of force that would be required to shear that weld. I am sure that more information will be provided in the next few days, but I'd guess that the inside welds on the that tower had begun to rust and were not observed by the maintenance department. As an engineer, I can only imagine the amount of equipment that needs to be inspectyed at that huge resort. Most employers do not understand the importance of quality preventative mainenance until something like this happens. Just my two cents.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

this is like my WORST FEAR EVER when i'm snowboarding! i was out at Copper riding with a friend from out there & he was telling us a story about the chairlift's malfunctioning (yes, it happens in the states too) and he said the best thing to do if the chairlift malfunctions & starts going backwards is to find a good looking place to jump, because if you ride it all the way back to the loading station you'll get mangled. so of course i think about that every time i'm on a lift. and when i'm in a gondola thoughts of it breaking & rolling down the hill tend to fill my mind.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

Ah shit. I'm going there in 9 weeks. Anyone got any ideas yet on how the the gondola will be closed for? Glad I'm staying in Creekside - looks like the new peak to peak will come in handy!!!


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

This is crazy. Its really good no-one got killed like the last gondola incident.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

yes, because that would cause prices for the lift tickets to go up even higher :laugh:


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

mpdsnowman said:


> :laugh: Wait till u get a load of the Jay Peak tram:laugh: and if that dont scare the shit outta ya "the freezer" will.


winter park was pretty bad...straight fucking up the side of the mountain & like 40 feet off the ground.

is it anything like that?

i'll get through it...it'll just freak me the fuck out. no swinging the seat...for real. i'll punch you in the face if you do. once we're safely off the lift, of course


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Trams are generally a lot higher off the ground. You should try the one at Squaw Valley. Something like 500ft off the ground as it goes over the cliffs. You'd love it...


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## friends (Apr 6, 2008)

when i was in austria some trams would go between mountains. we were what looked like a thousand feet up. im not joking either. if i can find the pics and load em ill show you. i remember getting on thinking "you must be kidding we are going over there?!?!"


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

Like this?


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## zakk (Apr 21, 2008)

Jenzo said:


> Indeed... but he was "blaming Canada".
> 
> Well time for bed its snowing like mad here gotta get up thar irly. :laugh:


Hardly, I was stating that I've never heard about this and any resort that's had multiple issues makes me wonder, especially since I'm headed to said resort in 30 hours. 

When you assume...


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## bakesale (Nov 28, 2008)

The same thing happened at a resort I worked at back in 04, except that it wasn't as big or dramatic. At Panorama there is a little gondola that connects the lower and upper village, it has 6 cars and they run a track maybe a km long. In August the lower tower supports snapped off the post and the cars at the bottom crashed to the ground. Luckily there was nobody on the gondola at the time but it was a huge deal, they had to fly an emergency repair crew out from HSQ and there was a big investigation into why it broke. It turned out there was weak welds on the tower support.

The tower snap on Excalibur couldn't have happened to a better tower, it was on the lower section of the lift so it was possible to just detach the upper section and clear everyone off. The lower section is very well supported with towers being close together so the cars didn't fall very far. Nobody was seriously hurt and it will be up and running in a week or two. The lifts at Whistler are inspected closely every 3 months so I wonder how they missed this and what caused it.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

that was two cents well spent


Cassin12 said:


> Wow, I rode that gondola back in April.
> 
> Chairlifts and gondolas are designed with a safety factor. I would think its either a 2 or higher. This means that with full capacity, all of the associated equipment is at only 50% of its design forces/load if you have a safety factor of 2. Those towers are made to support manily a compression load (downward force) and a minimal sideways force from primarily wind. I find it hard to imagine the amount of force that would be required to shear that weld. I am sure that more information will be provided in the next few days, but I'd guess that the inside welds on the that tower had begun to rust and were not observed by the maintenance department. As an engineer, I can only imagine the amount of equipment that needs to be inspectyed at that huge resort. Most employers do not understand the importance of quality preventative mainenance until something like this happens. Just my two cents.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

killclimbz said:


> Trams are generally a lot higher off the ground. You should try the one at Squaw Valley. Something like 500ft off the ground as it goes over the cliffs. You'd love it...




That's exactly what I was thinking, the one in Squaw is very scary. I used to travel with my friend and he is scared of heights, we went once on it and he wouldn't use it any more after that.



The worst experience I had on a lift was in Vail in the back bowls, cant exactly remember the lift name. But it was very windy and that lift was swinging from side to side. I thought the cars were going to start hitting each other. In addition to that they stopped the lift for about 10 minutes half way up, not sure why but its was some freaky stuff.


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

oh god, is this going to turn into a "worst lift story ever" thread now? ya'll are going to freak me out!


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## killclimbz (Aug 10, 2007)

Oh worst lift stories.

I was riding Arapahoe Basin during a very blustery storm. We were lapping the Paliviccini Chair as the terrain under it was a little more protected and the snow was piling up. Better than riding the lifts that went above tree line for sure. The lift was frequently stopping due to the high winds. So this little two seater fixed grip chair stopped next to Tower 14 with us going for a ride. The winds were so high, that our chair was banging into the tower hard! Clang! Clang! Clang! All while 40 or 50 feet in the air. Good stuff. N~R~G, you would have loved it...


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## Flick Montana (Jul 9, 2007)

So if an accident like this occurs only about once a year, I should feel safer knowing that this year's accident is over and we're all safe until next year...right?


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

I just thought I would point out that the first accident on Whistlers lift system was in '96, and it wasn't a gondola, it was the Silverchair lift. A plain old chairlift with those bubble sheild things. 2 dead, one paralyzed and 7 more seriously hurt. Thank God everyone on the gondola yesterday was okay, aside from the stains on their shorts, of course.


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## hvalley76 (Oct 17, 2007)

Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Water that had seeped into a gondola tower and frozen was one factor that led to a gondola lift crashing Tuesday at a popular ski resort in Whistler, B.C., according to the resort operator.

In a news release Wednesday, officials at Whistler/Blackcomb said that, due to extremely cold temperatures, ice buildup in the two parts of the tower that are spliced together led to a "rupture, an extremely unusual situation referred to as 'ice-jacking'."


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## Guest (Dec 17, 2008)

sounds similar to what happens to the roads during winter. One would think that this towers were better built to prevent this from happening.


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## Jenzo (Oct 14, 2008)

edmontonsara said:


> I just thought I would point out that the first accident on Whistlers lift system was in '96, and it wasn't a gondola, it was the Silverchair lift. A plain old chairlift with those bubble sheild things. 2 dead, one paralyzed and 7 more seriously hurt. Thank God everyone on the gondola yesterday was okay, aside from the stains on their shorts, of course.


Yep, the guy who was paralyzed got several million or somesuch


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2008)

Jenzo said:


> Yep, the guy who was paralyzed got several million or somesuch




Money is no good when have to be bound to chair or a bed for the rest of your life. Let me tell you something "I don't fear death, the one thing in life I fear is to be paralyzed". Specially for a group like ours that's so active, that would be a truly miserable ending for us.


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2008)

Flick Montana said:


> So if an accident like this occurs only about once a year, I should feel safer knowing that this year's accident is over and we're all safe until next year...right?


that's a fairly safe assumption 

i make the same assumption when i'm traveling and i see someone pulled over. idk why, but i've always had this thought that if i see someone else pulled over it means i'm golden & have no need to worry. i guess it's just that they took up that slight percentage of it being me. and while it sucks for them (make sure to give them thanks for taking one for the team) you can't help but feel a lil sense of relief that it wasn't you!


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## Guest (Dec 22, 2008)

Simply^Ride said:


> sounds similar to what happens to the roads during winter. One would think that this towers were better built to prevent this from happening.


In good news the new tower is up now and the runners look like going up tomorrow. All reports are good for it to be tested and running in a few days. I have to give credit to everyone for such a fast response. Everyone is still positive around the place and with the snow last night the pow runs this morning were epic. So I'm still happy! Just miss my free ride home from work at night thats all...

On that note for anyone venturing through Whistler this year, stick your head in the Salomon store and see if Shane (me) is in there. Come say hello and I'll see if I can come up for a ride with ya.


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## HouseMuzik (Dec 22, 2008)

god i think i'm going to be sick reading these lol
thank god my local lifts are only like 30 feet up at most. I think i'd die otw... i still haven't managed to get on them yet


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## maybeitsjustme (Dec 1, 2008)

mpdsnowman said:


> Well I dont think it will deter people. Lets face it the snow is addictive:laugh:
> 
> 
> :laugh: Wait till u get a load of the Jay Peak tram:laugh: and if that dont scare the shit outta ya "the freezer" will.


whats with the Jay-Peak tram? i've never skied jayp.


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2008)

maybeitsjustme said:


> whats with the Jay-Peak tram? i've never skied jayp.


It gets very high up and if the day is windy that thing will swing all over the place.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2008)

Im going to have to check it out - sounds fun.


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