Tragedy fails to deter skiers

Switzerland's Metro Alpin is proud of its safety record

By Douglas Herbert, CNN.com Europe writer

LONDON (CNN) -- Like the cable car that ferried up to 160 people to a fiery death deep within an Austrian ski slope, the Swiss-built "Metro Alpin" was built to convey as many skiers as possible, up as steep a slope as possible, in as little time as possible.

Yet unlike the ill-fated Austrian funicular, the Metro Alpin has performed its job for the past 26 years with the stealthful efficiency of a metallic tapeworm burrowing through the entrails of a 12,000-foot Alpine mountain.

Last Sunday was no exception.

REFERENCE Austrian train disaster   •  Graphic: How it happened   •  Survivor's tale   •  Ski champion dead   •  Video: Disaster   •  Video: Recovery   •  Press review   •  Search for clues   •  Accidents in Europe

A day after the sleepy village of Kaprun was rocked by Austria's worst peacetime disaster, the Metro Alpin, with its capacity of 110 passengers in the Swiss resort of Saas-Fee, enjoyed record ridership.

Bernhard Pfamatter, the director of funicular transport in Saas-Fee, nestled in a valley in Switzerland's Valais canton, expressed confidence that Austria's tragedy could not repeat itself in his domain.

Speaking to a Swiss news service, Pfamatter said Metro Alpin was under constant camera surveillance and that regular safety exercises -- including a fire drill two years ago -- made the possibility of a life-threatening incident extremely remote. Instead, he said, "statistically, funicular railways are the safest means of transport."

If a fire were to break out on his train, he said, passengers would be able to escape through an emergency exit -- something only a handful of escapees were able to do in the Austrian tragedy, and then only after shattering a carriage window with a ski pole.

As it struggles to deal with the after-shocks of an accident whose precise causes remain unknown, the ski industry is exhibiting a stoicism that befits a sport whose very thrill, enthusiasts say, derives in part from its inherent sense of risk.

Even the most elite schussers must be ever-wary to the perils of unforeseen avalanches or bone-breaking somersaults down treacherous slopes.

But the Austrian cable-car blaze -- like a similar conflagration in the Mont Blanc tunnel between France and Italy in March 1999 -- was neither the product of natural factors, as with avalanches, or human frailty, as with downhill tumbles. Rather, it appears to have stemmed from mechanical or engineering errors -- errors which can presumably be prevented from recurring.

"If an airplane crashes, everyone doesn't say suddenly I'm not flying again, but you need to find out why the plane crashed in order that it doesn't happen again in the next few months," said Graham Bell, the performance director of the British Ski Team.

Bell said his initial reaction to the Austrian accident had been one of shock, especially given the still-fresh memories of the Mont Blanc tunnel tragedy, in which 39 people lost their lives.

Yet while he stressed the need for ski resorts to make tunnels safer for passengers, he had no intention of staying on the sidelines: This Friday, Bell will be riding in a funicular himself when he heads out to Tignes, in France, for the annual Snowboard World Cup.

Hundreds of thousands of Europeans will hit the ski slopes this season

Tignes is one of three major ski resorts in France, along with Val d'Isère and Les Deux Alpes, that operate funicular services. The resorts are currently seeking more information from Austrian authorities about the causes of the accident at Kaprun.

Bernard Genevray, the president of La Société des Téléphériques de la Grande Motte (SCTM), which has continued to operate its two funicular cars at Tignes, said he was confident that his cars were safe following a 15-day safety drill last October and a follow-up check in the aftermath of the Kaprun accident.

"We checked our rescue equipment and our evacuation systems," Genevray said. "After learning about the Kaprun accident, we repeated some internal tests."

Genvray added he was confident that the material in his trains, as well as the cables which pull them, were inflammable. Nonetheless, he and his colleagues at the two other ski resorts plan to meet Wednesday with the French transport minister to consider possible precautionary measures pending more information from Austrian officials.

Those who work in the ski industry say skiers themselves, while rattled by the latest incident, do not show signs of letting it deter them from hitting the slopes this winter.

"We're not really seeing any impact on ski booking," said Nick O'Donnell, a manager at U.K.-based Thomas Cook, which estimates that 750,000 Britons will book ski and snow boarding vacations this year.

"Both in the shops and on the phones we are seeing a few people asking questions -- wanting to know if the facilities in Austria are going to be available when they go on holiday." O'Donnell said Thomas Cook had a tour operator on the ground in Austria keeping in close contact with Austrian authorities on the situation at various resorts.

"We are just monitoring the situation," O'Donnell said. "A lot of people are perhaps waiting to see what will happen as the news is updated.

Vanessa Haines, a spokesperson for the Ski Club of Great Britain, said the accident at Karpun came at an inauspicious time for the industry, at the start of the season when many people were thinking of booking their holidays.

But she noted that while people tended to flood the club with phone calls when an avalanche hit, the phone lines had been relatively silent in the wake of the cable-car tragedy.

"I think British skiers and boarders are wise to the fact that one (the Mont-Blanc accident) was a road accident and this one is a transportation accident. It hasn't happened by people causing it themselves."

At the epicentre of the tragedy, however, there was a recognition this week that a major persuasion campaign lay ahead to build business back up.

Hans Wallner, a spokesman at the Kaprun tourist office, was blunt in remarks to Austria's ORF television.

"We must be prepared for a significant reduction in tourism due to this accident," he said.

"We have to win back people's trust and we have to prove to our guests that, generally speaking, it is safe to ski this season."

New clue in ski train tragedy
November 14, 2000
First bodies recovered at ski train disaster
November 13, 2000
Death toll at least 30 in Mont Blanc tunnel fire
March 26, 1999

Europe's sports region: Kaprun & Zell am See
Tignes ski resort
Metro Alpin
Saas-Fee (Valais Tourism)
Republic of Austria

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