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TOWER COLLAPSE
Whistler gondola maker to issue safety warning

December 18, 2008

WHISTLER, B.C. -- The company that built the gondola tower that split apart and toppled at B.C.'s Whistler Blackcomb resort will issue a North America-wide warning to other resorts about the potential hazards of similar systems.

Speaking to reporters in front of the tower that snapped on Tuesday and left 53 passengers stranded for several hours, Warren Sparks, executive vice-president of Doppelmayr CTEC, said his company would "inform all our customers about this potential hazard."

The incident has rattled residents and tourists in Whistler, the town that will host the 2010 Olympic Games in a little more than a year.

Yesterday, officials from Doppelmayr, Whistler Blackcomb and the British Columbia Safety Authority - which regulates "ropeway systems" such as chairlifts and gondolas in the province and will lead the investigation into the incident - said the tower snapped as a result of "ice jacking."

What happened to the tower was similar to what happens to a bottle of pop left too long in the freezer: Water seeped into a container designed to be watertight, froze as a result of colder-than-normal temperatures and expanded, rupturing the structure.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Jason Gill of the BCSA said investigators had checked other towers on the mountain to ensure that similar conditions were not putting other systems at risk. He said an investigation will focus on how the water got into the structure and that the agency may make recommendations as a result of its work.

There are about 300 towers in Whistler Blackcomb's extensive network of lifts and gondolas, but officials were not immediately able to say how many are built in the same way as the damaged Excalibur tower.

Doppelmayr is one of the world's leading manufacturers of gondolas, and the warning will be distributed throughout the company's international network, Mr. Sparks said in an interview. The tower was one of 26 that link the cables and cars that make up the Excalibur gondola, which ferries skiers from the resort's base partway up Blackcomb mountain, one of two peaks that comprise Whistler Blackcomb.

No cable cars detached from the line, but people in some cars on the lower portion of the two-part Excalibur line were terrified as their cars lurched, sending passengers crashing into each other and leaving one car dangling over a creek.

A dozen people were injured, with the most serious injury a broken vertebra and others escaping with cuts or bruises.

Doppelmayr built the resort's new showcase Peak 2 Peak gondola, which links the two mountains with an 11-minute ride over a valley floor, but the towers used in that system are a different design - they are coated and peppered with holes to allow water to go in and out of the structures.

Initial investigations indicate that the Excalibur failure was an isolated incident, BCSA officials said.

Investigators from the agency and Whistler Blackcomb staff spread over the slopes Tuesday night, working until after midnight to check towers that have a design similar to the one that was damaged.

Most lifts were open yesterday, except Excalibur. Crowds milled around the village square, braving bitter winds and cold, with many people shrugging off the incident of the day before.

At a news briefing yesterday, Whistler Blackcomb vice-president Doug Forseth said safety is a top concern and that the resort will work with investigators to determine what happened, and whether similar incidents can be prevented.

The resort's image is bound to be affected by the accident, especially with the Olympic spotlight focused on it, Mr. Forseth said.

"I'd prefer the story wasn't out there, but it is a reality," Mr. Forseth said.

"I can only tell you we are going to work to restore confidence where it has been damaged."

The resort has had worse disasters.

In 1995, four chairs on the Quicksilver chairlift at Whistler came off the cable, falling nine metres to the ground, killing two people and injuring eight others.That lift was subsequently replaced and Whistler Blackcomb - which formerly operated under separate ownership - worked to rebuild customer confidence, Mr. Forseth said. There have been other instances of tower failure resulting from water damage. In December, 2006, a chairlift tower at Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg, Idaho, was damaged after water made its way inside and froze. The structural damage was discovered before the mountain opened.

John Williams, director of marketing at Silver Mountain, said in a telephone interview yesterday that since the incident, the towers are inspected at least once a year. Following the incident, the towers were sealed, holes were drilled at the base of the towers so water can drain out, and officials inspect the towers by tapping on them. Whistler Blackcomb is one of Doppelmayr's best customers when it comes to maintenance and inspection, Mr. Sparks said yesterday, responding to a question as to whether corners had been cut in maintaining equipment.

"Absolutely not," he said.