Lisbon Funicular Crash Initial Report Reveals Scale of Failure

Initial reports of last month’s funicular crash in Lisbon have killed 16 people.

Portugal’s air and rail accident investigation bureau said the underground cable – which acts as a counterweight between the two trains and broke, causing the crash – was faulty and had never been certified for passenger traffic.

It said the cable was technically unsound and was bought by Caris, the company that runs Lisbon’s public transport, in 2022.

The 140-year-old Gloria Funicular, popular with tourists, derailed on September 3 and crashed into a building.

Among those killed were 11 foreign nationals, including three British nationals, while another 20 were injured.

A preliminary report released Monday said Caris engineers did not perform any inspections and the cable was not tested before it was installed.

The supervision and maintenance of the funicular by a company outsourced by Caris also did not work properly – apparently Gloria gave the funicular the all-clear on the morning of the disaster, although it is not certain whether an inspection actually took place that day.

The emergency brake system, which the driver tried to apply properly when the cable broke, did not work properly and was never tested in advance, the report said.

However, the preliminary report emphasized that the information collected to date is “incomplete”, requiring further tests and analysis.

“No blame or responsibility should be assumed on the part of any organization or individual involved in this incident,” it said.

Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, who was re-elected on October 12 despite accusations by the opposition that he had failed in his duty to oversee the city’s funicular, told SIC television that the report confirmed the “unfortunate tragedy… was due to technical reasons and not political reasons”.

Caris issued a statement stating that “it is not possible at this time to say whether the non-conformities in the use of the cables are related to the accident”, referring to a passage in the report that the same cables had been used on the Gloria funicular for 601 days without incident.

“At this stage, it is not possible to say whether the use of this type of non-compliant cable caused the interference, or what interference was involved in the rupture … and it is determined by the investigation that there were other factors that must have interfered,” the statement added.

The company emphasized that although the cables were commissioned under the current board of directors that took over in May 2022, the acquisition process took place under the previous board.

The entire report will take about 11 months to complete. If that is delayed, a more detailed interim report will be released instead.

Meanwhile, all Lisbon cable cars have been ordered out of service pending the necessary safety checks.