Sugarloaf Chair Accident

[JerseyGuy]

Boy, these guys are taking a page from Powdr's "control the message" playbook: they've apparently disabled the ability to post on their Facebook page.

Gonna be interesting to see when the stories start to focus on the wisdom of running a forty-year-old, wind-hold-prone lift when gusts are hitting 30-40 mph...

[Dr. NO]

questions for the chairlift experts from the uninformed:
why isn't the downloading chair on the ground?
did every uploading chair fall to the ground? or just those between or around the break? (i can't tell form the pictures).

Looks like the chair derailed at a single lift tower. The majority of the chairs between the two towers with the cable still intact are on the ground as the "support" in this section is no longer attached.

there is also the fact that some 100 people were still on the Load side of the lift. That extra weight is pulling the load side down and keeping tension on the download side.
Someone stated the lift did not stop when it derailed and dragged a few people up the hill until a lifty stopped the chair. Seems there should be sensors on the towers to determine of the cable is actually still there.

Sugarloaf Press Release:http://www.sugarloaf.com/Corporate/Medi ... way_2.html

[Stormchaser]

Word is that lift has an automatic wind shut down with sensors for shut down when winds reach certain speeds. Unconfirmed rumor at this point.

[Bubba]

AP Article below

***************************

Several injured as chairs drop from Maine ski lift
By GLENN ADAMS, Associated Press Glenn Adams, Associated Press
19 mins ago

CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine – A chair lift derailed in high winds at Maine's tallest ski mountain Tuesday, sending screaming skiers plummeting as far as 30 feet to the slope below and injuring several of them.

The Sugarloaf resort in Carrabassett Valley, about 120 miles north of Portland, said about six people were injured when five chairs fell an estimated 25 to 30 feet. The resort's ski patrol evacuated the lift, which had passed an inspection.

None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening, the resort said. The injured were treated and taken to hospitals. About 220 people were on the lift at the time, and inspectors were headed to the scene.

Rebecca London, one of the skiers who tumbled to the snow, told The Associated Press that she had a soft landing because the mountain had not groomed the new-fallen snow underneath the lift. Her face hit the retaining bar, but her goggles spared her from serious injury, she said.

Most of the skiers who fell appeared to be stunned but OK, she said, and the ski patrol was on the scene within minutes to begin treating the injured. London said she wasn't hurt badly enough to go to a hospital.

Jay Marshall, hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to the broken one, said that his lift was moving but that the broken one was not.

There was a "loud snapping noise" after the lift restarted, he said, then screams.

"The next thing I know, it was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo," he said. Some skiers tumbled from their chairs.

Gideon Hacker, a skier from Princeton, N.J., said he saw at least one person taken off the mountain in a gurney pulled by a snowmobile. He said Sugarloaf workers used a pulley device to lower skiers to safety.

Jill Gray, a spokeswoman for Franklin Memorial Hospital about in Farmington, about 45 miles from the mountain, said that one person was taken there and flown to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Another person was being treated in Franklin's emergency room, she said, and the hospital expected to receive five more patients. She did not give details on the injuries.

At the time of the accident, high winds were buffeting Maine a day after a blizzard swept across the region.

The National Weather Service has no wind sensors near Sugarloaf, but a weather balloon launched in Gray, in southern Maine, showed winds of 40 mph at 1,000 feet Tuesday, a weather service meteorologist.

It's unclear whether the accident was wind-related or mechanical. The spillway chair lift was properly licensed and inspected, said Doug Dunbar of Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation.

Ski resort chair lifts fall under the jurisdiction of the department's Board of Elevator and Tramway Safety, and two inspectors were being sent to Sugarloaf, Dunbar said. The Maine Emergency Management Agency was sending a representative, as well, a spokeswoman said.

At 4,237 feet, Sugarloaf is Maine's second-highest mountain after Mount Katahdin.

___

Associated Press writers Wilson Ring in Montpelier; Bob Salsberg and Jay Lindsay in Boston; and David Sharp in Portland contributed to this report

[Bubba]

Boy, these guys are taking a page from Powdr's "control the message" playbook: they've apparently disabled the ability to post on their Facebook page.

Gonna be interesting to see when the stories start to focus on the wisdom of running a forty-year-old, wind-hold-prone lift when gusts are hitting 30-40 mph...

.

Can't blame them at the moment for trying to keep misinformation and speculation to a minimum. They forget, of course, that the AP news article has shown up on Yahoo and there's a whole discussion going on there and elsewhere (like here) already.

[tt431]

Killington VS Sugarloaf: Sugarloaf has less wind holds than Killington.

Sorry, it was right there.

[Mister Moose]

Some dramatic photos and description from an eyewitness:

I was on the other side of this unique "double-runner" style chairlift when this happened. I saw the other side stop with a strange jerk that I had never seen before. Then we came up to the scene where the rope was on the ground, and it was a very scary and bizzare thing to behold. And then I saw my mother - she was on the side that crashed, on one of the chairs that hit the ground. She is ok. Very shaken-up and some bruises, but basically fine. She skied down on her own. I took some pics of the scene with my wife's phone that I will post later when I can download them.

According to my mom, the crash appeared to be caused by a mechanic who was up on the tower banging on the shieve-train with a hammer or something, which they are known to do from time to time for god knows what reason, but he apparently knocked the rope off the wheels somehow. The worst looking injury was a guy pinned under a chair and he couldn't get himself out, I believe due to his injuries, but he was conscious.

The most serious injury.

It will be interesting to see if this guy's Mom's description of the possible cause has merit, or if it was in fact due to something else. Sorry for the photo size, but they aren't mine, and they carry much more detail at this size.
http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/s ... hp?t=32565

[Dr. NO]

"caused by a mechanic who was up on the tower banging on the shieve-train with a hammer or something, which they are known to do from time to time for god knows what reason, but he apparently knocked the rope off the wheels somehow."

A statement like this without knowledge or proof is just wrong and possibly liable. People should provide facts (not a K-zone specialty) and be quiet until information is released by the authorities. Sugarloaf and the skiing industry will have enough problems with an accident like this.

[Big Bob]

Excellent find Mr Moose!! I was on that chair a little over a week ago. I would guess that it is safe to say that a contract with a lift manufacture will be signed very shortly!!!

Offical release on face book page; http://www.facebook.com/notes/sugarloaf ... 1035799069

[Mister Moose]

"caused by a mechanic who was up on the tower banging on the shieve-train with a hammer or something, which they are known to do from time to time for god knows what reason, but he apparently knocked the rope off the wheels somehow."

A statement like this without knowledge or proof is just wrong and possibly liable. People should provide facts (not a K-zone specialty) and be quiet until information is released by the authorities. Sugarloaf and the skiing industry will have enough problems with an accident like this.

Doc, you left out "appeared to be..." from the original quote. This indicates preliminary opinion, not fact. The statement is from an eyewitness, and as such the observation that a lift mechanic was on the affected tower at the time of the incident and seen banging with a (?)hammer is not irrelevant or irresponsible to make public. If the eyewitness account ends up being untruthful, the source may have to answer for it. Given that he is posting under what appears to be a real name, I doubt he would be cavalier with the facts in such a high profile story. Amateur eyewitnesses often make mistaken conclusions about the meaning of what they saw, but the strict events of what they saw is very much worth reporting, IMHO.

"mechanic who was up on the tower banging on the shieve-train with a hammer or something,.." Factual observation.

"...he apparently knocked the rope off the wheels somehow." Witness's opinion. Subject to verification, given the source. Note he said "apparently". In the best of worlds, I agree he should have held off on this opinion of cause, but remember this is an eyewitness's story, not a newspaper article.

[Big Bob]

One persons take on what happened, taken from the unoffical sugarloaf chat room,

This is what I saw:
Mid-morning, I chose Spillway West based mostly on the fact that there was no lift line (but a little on the fact that I did get stuck on Spillway East yesterday for about 10 minutes after I felt some "lurching" a la King Pine's Bullwheel incident of last March). As I unloaded, I noticed a lift mechanic on a snowmobile creeping slowly past the terminal of Spillway West and, surprisingly, heading right down Spillway. He was driving markedly slowly, eyes glued to the tower sheaves (pulley wheels). I thought nothing of it really, deducing that he must be responding to the issues that I felt yesterday (Monday, 12/27). I skied down Spillway (which, mind you, was amazing, even though it was all crud bumps). By the time I got to the bottom of Spillway, East was stopped, so I jumped on West and headed up again. Obviously, something was up as I had completed the entire trip up West while East remained unmoved. Two towers before the West terminal, that same lift mechanic was clipped in to the top of the tower, straddling the East side "T". He had a large screwdriver out and was using it as a lever to twist some kind of tension screw device which connected to the upward tower sheaves. I'm not an engineer but it seems like he was trying to correct the stresses on the sheaves or their housing. I did not see him hammering anything in my 30 seconds of observation. He was simply twisting a large tensioning screw. There didn't appear to be anymore ice or rime on the lifts, towers, or sheaves than there normally is and, in all honesty, this was a modest windy day for Sugarloaf standards. I unloaded and headed down Winter's Way for another amazing run. Spillway East was still stopped so I headed down to the Superquad. That is when I noticed, from the distance of the base of the mountain to Spillway, a lot of people scattered about the trail, just about where the steeper pitch of Spillway begins. I thought it must just be a team of patrollers beginning evacuations. Little did I know that the sheaves on the same tower I saw the mechanic working on had given way and the line had dropped.
Upon closer inspection, it didn't look like the lift had "derailed", but that those tower sheaves and their housing had either tweaked outward and rotated so that the cable had nowhere to go but off. It took about 1-1.5 hours to get everybody who hadn't fallen off of the lift. I saw at least a half dozen evac. teams helping people off. Everyone from the patrol to mechanics, even ambassadors (wow, they do do something!). As the evacs. were happening, so, too, were the rescues of those hurt in the fall. I saw two sleds go down Spillway with people bundled on them who were clearly hurt. Also, the two Bullwinkle's Bombardier Cats were taking relatives up to the hurt and taking people down from the trail. I think the mountain decided at about 11:30 or so to begin shutting down all lifts (including T-Bar #3) that accessed the Spillway area. At 1:30, Superquad, DRC East and West, and the T-Bar were all running until closing. Spillway West remained shutdown for the remainder of the day. King Pine and Timberline were never opened due to wind. Whiffletree, Snubber, Skidway, and Sawduster were all open during this time. I'm not sure about Bucksaw.

Anyway, if you've read this far, congrats. Sorry it was so long. It was an incredible, terrifying, surreal, adventurous, emergency-filled, and bad day.

[trtaylor]

Boy, these guys are taking a page from Powdr's "control the message" playbook: they've apparently disabled the ability to post on their Facebook page.

I don't see it that way.

Excerpt:
Now, about the temporary block of our Facebook page: please understand that our intent is NOT to stifle discussion or dodge your questions. Today’s incident rapidly became a worldwide story and we’re still dealing with the media onslaught. So we’re working with the families of the people who were hurt, dealing with the media, and still running a ski area (yes, we’re still operating). Keeping tabs on the Facebook page and making sure that rumors and speculation don’t spread would’ve been too much.

So here’s the deal going forward. We’ll keep you posted to the best of our ability. This is where you can come for official information. Please bear three things in mind:

1) We’ll release any additional information when we know it. We probably won’t answer questions – not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t know.

2) Speculating or trafficking in rumors won’t help anyone. Please refrain from doing so here.

3) If you hear something and it didn’t come from us, it’s almost certainly a rumor.

Everyone cool with that? Thanks. Thanks also for all your good wishes – and special thanks to the mountain ops and patrol people, who did an amazing job today.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/sugarloaf?v=wal ... 1035799069

[Clutch]

Some more pictures and an audio interview with Sugarloaf's communications manager Ethan Austin are up on CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/28/maine. ... tml?hpt=T2

He would like you to know the rest of the lifts at Sugarloaf will be running as scheduled.

[Highway Star]

Made CBS evening news - 4:00 mark, 2 minutes long......

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id= ... ontentBody

That's not positive publicity, Jersey Guy.

[DrJeff]

Made CBS evening news - 4:00 mark, 2 minutes long......

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id= ... ontentBody

That's not positive publicity, Jersey Guy.

NBC Nightly News had a story about it too. Kind of an easy story for the national media to do right now given that snow related news seems to be dominating a good percentage of their programs these past few days