Has a ski lift cable ever broke?

In 1976, 42 people there, including 15 children, lost their lives when the cable holding up their ski-lift car snapped. The car fell 700 feet, with its overhead assembly landing on top of it.



Yes, although modern ski lifts are engineered with multiple redundant safety systems, there have been several historical instances where ski lift cables have snapped or failed. One of the most significant recent incidents occurred in January 2025 at the Astún ski resort in the Spanish Pyrenees, where a cable snapped, causing chairs to jolt violently and injuring at least 30 people. Historically, one of the deadliest cable-related disasters was the 1998 Cavalese cable car crash in Italy, though that was caused by a military jet severing the cable rather than a mechanical snap. In 1976, a cable at the Vail resort in Colorado snapped, leading to several fatalities. In 2026, cable failures are extremely rare due to rigorous "Non-Destructive Testing" (NDT) such as magnetic flux leakage inspections, which can detect internal wire breaks before the cable loses structural integrity. Most lift accidents today are caused by "derailments" (the cable jumping off the sheave wheels) or "rollback" incidents rather than a clean break of the steel haul rope. Ski resorts are required by law to conduct daily visual inspections and annual deep-tissue scans of the cables to ensure they can withstand the immense tension and environmental stress of the alpine environment.

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No matter which cable you choose, you will have to replace your cables eventually. Your cables will wear with time and will need to be replaced roughly every three to five years – depending on how much you use your lift.

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According to the National Ski Areas Association, some 3,500 chairlifts across the country make more than 300 million lift rides every year. Yet since 2004, there have been three fatalities from falling off a chairlift, the NSAA says.

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they bring a rope up and over it we raise a seat up to each passenger and we manually lower them back to the ground to evacuate the chairlift. And we go from there, said Crawford. Ski patrol practices lift evacuations twice a year, once in the fall, and a second time just before the season begins.

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All lifting cables should be replaced every three to five years or when damage is visible, but how much damage warrants replacement?

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A 'drunk' skier died falling out of a gondola window in the French Alps. A tourist crashed through a ski-lift window and fell to his death in the French Alps.

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Aerial ropeways are amongst the safest, if not the safest forms of transport in the world.

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The splicing process begins with unraveling the strands of the rope on each end. Once enough length has been unraveled, the strands are pulled together so that the strands on each end mesh together, like how you would interlock your fingers. The core is then cut so it touches end-to-end.

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Collisions with other skiers and stationary objects are the leading cause of ski-related fatalities and injuries. Therefore, it's important to maintain control when skiing, and understand your responsibility to those around you while on the slopes.

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