A preliminary investigation indicates that a connecting cable broke before Wednesday’s deadly funicular crash in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon that killed at least 16 people and injured several others.
A probe conducted by the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Accidents in Civil Aviation and Rail (GPIAAF) found that a steel cable connecting the historic Glória funicular’s two carriages had “given way” shortly after they began their respective journeys along Calçada da Glória, the narrow street where the funicular operated.
A scheduled inspection had been conducted on the morning of the incident, which detected “no anomalies in the vehicles’ cable or braking systems,” the report, published Saturday, said. It added that it was “not possible” to see the condition of the section where the cable broke.
This resulted in the carriage at the top of the street increasing in speed down the slope and later derailing, GPIAAF’s report found. “The first collision occurred at a speed of around 60 km/h (around 37 miles per hour), with all these events having occurred in a timeframe of less than 50 seconds,” the report said, based on initial estimates.
No firm conclusions can yet be drawn regarding the exact causes of the incident as further investigation is needed, GPIAAF said.
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