Chair falls off lift at Camelback

[FBGM]

Ouch. Bad one.

I could armchair quarterback lift maintenance and how experienced mechanics are few and far between but end result is the same.

Scary stuff. Hope all heal up best they can.

 

[SnowRock]

Before I moved out of Morris county was often at camelback lapping this quad. Is it not odd that they haven’t even released a statement? I mean crisis mgt 101.

Also seems strange that there is no local news covering this. Ton of local Poconos outlets.

 

[PAabe]

Luckily, they use different designs. Sullivan was the last of the UNI series and Sugarbush’s lifts are the first of the Spacejet series. It was not a mechanical problem with the lift most likely as the grip has multiple safeties, meaning it would have to be a catastrophic failure for the grip to break. Horseplay is also ruled out, as it is virtually impossible to bounce a detachable enough to hit a tower as they have more line tension than fixed lifts. 99% sure it’s a maintenance issue.

People on other forums are saying it has been bouncing in that spot and stopping a lot recently

Injuries apparently include broken arm, broken pelvis, mild concussion, and bruised lung. No loss of consciousness. Seems like this could have been a lot worse, hopefully they can recover well

Lots of armchair technical discussion going on at liftblog article comments if that interest anyone

Weird that no news has reported on this yet and Camelback has not even released a statement acknowledging that it happened.

 

[cdskier]

Weird that no news has reported on this yet and Camelback has not even released a statement acknowledging that it happened.

Finally saw the story picked up by a channel in Allentown...

Witness: Family injured when chair falls from ski lift at Camelback

A witness riding two seats behind the family described Sunday's scary scene.

www.wfmz.com

There's also a brief statement from Camelback in the article.

 

[ss20]

Ouch. Bad one.

I could armchair quarterback lift maintenance and how experienced mechanics are few and far between but end result is the same.

Scary stuff. Hope all heal up best they can.

It's scary how correct this statement is.

Truthfully, I am amazed at how unregulated ski lifts are. I mean...at any given time on a long, high-capacity lift with full chairs there's 300+ people onboard. I can't think of any form of transit where that many people are on a machine that complicated and it's ran by people making a dollar over minimum wage and the chief mechanics responsible for its maintenance make a few dollars more than that.

 

[thetrailboss]

Finally saw the story picked up by a channel in Allentown...

Witness: Family injured when chair falls from ski lift at Camelback

A witness riding two seats behind the family described Sunday's scary scene.

www.wfmz.com

There's also a brief statement from Camelback in the article.

Seems thin on details. Hope everyone is OK.

 

[Bandit2941]

Friend of mine who is a CBK regular said he heard that the people in the chair were jumping up and down/rocking the chair before the accident. Not sure how true that is.

Bad situation either way!

 

[FBGM]

It's scary how correct this statement is.

Truthfully, I am amazed at how unregulated ski lifts are. I mean...at any given time on a long, high-capacity lift with full chairs there's 300+ people onboard. I can't think of any form of transit where that many people are on a machine that complicated and it's ran by people making a dollar over minimum wage and the chief mechanics responsible for its maintenance make a few dollars more than that.

It’s scary. I’ve worked in the ski industry in upper management for better part of 15 years. And saw 2 night and day operations. I’ll share:

Ski Area 1 - a top 10 ski area in USA
Advanced lift maintenance with about 5 top tier mechanics. Paid decent but not to the level of say a similar job in another industry. Great wealth of knowledge between those say 5 top guys. But all were pushing retirement. The next level of up and comers were good, trained well but just not at that level yet. And their pay was sub par. Overall great department and everyone enjoyed the work and company. In 8+\- years no lift accidents, almost 0 lift downtime and 1 evac - on a major lift, full, and lined was cleared in about 45 min. I felt very safe on any lift any time.

Ski Area 2 - Major resort, but not as top tier as above.
Terrifying lift maintenance knowledge and practices. Mix of newer and older lifts. Non stop downtime and braking. Lift maintenance crew just had knowledge of basics. 1 senior guy on crew and he was OK at best. No up and coming staff. Low pay. Poor attitudes. Stuff would brake and be down for days waiting for manufacture help to come and diagnose because on staff had no idea. I stopped riding some lifts shortly before I quit due to safety concerns.

It’s pretty crazy to see the age of some lifts. There are governing bodies for each state. It’s just still a scary grey area.

I’ve said it before, there will be a catostrophic lift accident at some point. And this will change everything. It just sucks it will have to come to that.

 

[PAabe]

One would think these places would want to have good enough internal inspection to at least lessen the insurance/liability risk and avoid additional future regulation. Like I get a lot of places are cash strapped, but you can't be running something as complicated as a detachable lift on a shoestring budget, and Camelback of all places is certainly not cash strapped.

T-bars/pomas are making a small comeback, another advantage is they can't really catastrophically fail when the passengers are already on the ground - I would assume this is reflected in the insurance rates as well

 

[Smellytele]

Ski are #2 = Mount Snow?

 

[Zand]

Ski are #2 = Mount Snow?

My assumption was that, Killington, or Sunday River. All three examples of Les Otten era rapid expansion and zero maintenance.

 

[ss20]

Ski are #2 = Mount Snow?

lmao of course. FBGM may be a nice "insider" addition to this board but it's tough to take anything he says seriously after those AMAZING Mount Snow tirades he built his first few dozen posts upon and has peppered in since.

 

[ne_skier]

It’s 99% resort error. Horseplay is ruled out according to witnesses, it was a calm day weather-wise and the grips have 2 safeties, meaning it would have to be a catastrophic failure that was somehow not detected before the chair left the terminal, a near impossibility. My bet is that the resort was partially negligible in the accident, perhaps hence why their statement was so skimpy and lackluster. I’ve heard that the new ownership is cutting corners too which only further signals resort error. Important thing is that everyone is alive and everyone should make a full recovery soon. Dad has a broken pelvis, one kid has a broken arm and the other has a bruised lung.

 

[PAabe]

Statement from earlier this afternoon



"Our current statement regarding yesterday’s Sullivan Lift incident. Sullivan Lift has been closed until further notice."

I'll call it an accident unless proven otherwise however if cutting corners on lift maintenance deemed to be a contributing cause they have no excuse

 

[Zermatt]

lmao of course. FBGM may be a nice "insider" addition to this board but it's tough to take anything he says seriously after those AMAZING Mount Snow tirades he built his first few dozen posts upon and has peppered in since.

Or somebody that doesn't know the difference between break and brake.

 

[deadheadskier]

So do the lift manufacturers offer training? I'm just curious how resorts build up those skills in their staff outside of experience.

In my industry, we offer training for a fee to our customers. The biomedical engineers are entered in the exact same courses as our own field service engineers.

You would think there should be some sort of national certification database and resorts have to maintain a certain amount of credentialed mechanics on staff in order to open.

 

[kingslug]

Maintenance is maintenance..do it well and often..you lessen the chance for failure..its simple..its a machine.
This..I know.

 

[ss20]

Maintenance is maintenance..do it well and often..you lessen the chance for failure..its simple..its a machine.
This..I know.

Yes... but this is an industry infamous for deferring maintenance til the thing breaks. Usually it's the small stuff. Usually.

 

[ne_skier]

The infamous Spillway accident at Sugarloaf for example has been attributed to poor maintenance procedures

 

[thetrailboss]

The infamous Spillway accident at Sugarloaf for example has been attributed to poor maintenance procedures

The facts of that accident are pretty bad. It doesn't help that a mechanic was literally on the tower making an adjustment while the lift was loaded and operating. I know that there was litigation over that accident. I would imagine that the case was settled?

The other incident, involving King Pine, was also pretty bad. At least with that one there was a design defect involved, but it still is not good.

As to Camelback, I know some folks are instantly finding fault when we don't know what really happened. I imagine that the state inspectors will do a report. We don't know much about what happened. Was the chair improperly loaded? Did the kids slide over to one side to look at Dad's phone? Did wind play a factor? Was there some other malfunction? Was the haul rope not properly adjusted? Did someone in another chair bounce? Honestly, chairs like this don't just fall from the sky. That said, Lift Blog cited some other recent examples involving Doppelmayr chairs.