1990 Tbilisi aerial tramway accident
| File:Rittnerbahn 09.jpg
A cable car like the one in the 1990 accident.
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| Date | 1 June 1990 |
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| Location | Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia |
| Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Deaths | 20 |
| Non-fatal injuries | 15 |
The 1990 Tbilisi aerial tramway accident was an aerial tramway accident in Tbilisi, the capital of Soviet Georgia on June 1 1990, which resulted in at least 20 deaths and 15 injuries.
The accident involved 2 gondolas on a ropeway route between Rustaveli Avenue and Mount Mtatsminda.[1] The red gondola was on its way down from the slope of the mount nearing the lower mast and the yellow gondola was nearing an upper mast, When the hauling rope broke the lower red gondola rolled down and slammed on the wall of the lower station injuring people, the upper gondola rolled down generating higher speed (brakes didn't work), on reaching the lower cable car support mast it struck the broken hauling rope and mast which tore a gondola apart the collision was so strong that track cable fell of the mast dangling the cut open gondola above the rooftops and caused people to fall from 20 metres of height onto rooftops and ground, at least 20 were killed and 15 injured after jumping from the accelerating gondola. Most of them were children celebrating Children's Day. [2][3][4]
In 1989 the cable car was reconstructed, lower mast was changed and two short upper masts were cut off on which gondolas used to have slight angle and instead one high mast was installed causing the new gondolas to run from the upper station horizontal to the mast and then with a sharp angle head down (causing a feeling of a sudden fall in abyss). The standard oval Soviet gondolas were changed with bigger rectangular ones. The brake system of new gondolas were not operating properly but the fact was left without mayor precaution.
The aerial tramway was never restored and the lower station was abolished later in the 90s. In 2011 the construction of the new lower station began several meters farther from the original one, closer to the Radisson Blu Hotel, but the project was discontinued.
References
- ↑ Tbilisi Ropeways. Civil Georgia. 2012.
- ↑ Cable car break kills 20 at Soviet Union tourist site. Star-News. June 2, 1990.
- ↑ Soviet tram falls. San Jose Mercury News, June 2, 1990.
- ↑ 20 feared dead in tram crash. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 2, 1990.
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