Whitehorse's Mount Sima ski hill closed after chairlift malfunction that left 100 people in the air
CBC
The Mount Sima ski hill near Whitehorse will be closed for the remainder of the Christmas holidays after its chairlift stopped working on Sunday, stranding more than a hundred people in the air.
Tom Luxemburger, president of the Friends of Mount Sima Society, said there's "only a few specialized engineers in the world" who deal with high tension cables for chairlifts, and there's no exact timeline for repairs right now.
"The expert that we are going to be using, unfortunately he's in Switzerland right now. So we are co-ordinating with him in terms of what we can get in terms of consultation remotely," Luxemburger said.
Luxemburger said there's an "abrasion" on the main cable line that needs to be fixed. One of the main pieces that guide the chairs into a narrow passage to spin around something called a bullwheel became dislodged on Sunday, he said.
"So instead of guiding the chair back where it needed to be, the chair got jammed up," he said.
"Could I run it today? Yeah, you know what, I probably could, but I don't want to take that chance. We're going to make sure that the entire line, every component is going to be inspected," he said.
The lift suddenly stopped Sunday afternoon around 2:30 p.m. and passengers started to be rescued around 3:30 p.m.
Luxemburger praised the firefighters who responded to the incident, using ropes and safety harnesses to bring passengers to safety.
No one was seriously injured.
"I've had feedback from guests directly first hand just state, hey, this is a situation which could have been scary, but these guys really deescalated it and calmed it down and were swift and good communicators," Luxemburger said.
Thomas Vollmer said he waited for an hour before being rescued.
"I think we were the third chairlift to get rescued out of 135 [chairs]," Vollmer said.
Nathan Neunherz said he planned to warm up after coming off the lift with one thing.
"Hot chocolate," he said.
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