Details are emerging of the horrifying final moments of a British couple who died alongside two others when the cable car they were travelling in plummeted 100ft into an Italian mountainside.
The holidaymakers were travelling up Monte Faito, which overlooks the bay of Naples, alongside two Israeli tourists and the cabin’s driver, named in Italian media as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato.
The group had set off up the mountain in one of the cableway’s two cabins, leaving from the station in the historic town of Castellammare di Stabia at 2.40pm yesterday afternoon.
Six minutes later, with the cabin understood to have been just 20 seconds away from reaching the safety of the terminal at the top of the 3,700ft peak, it ground to a halt.
Officials have said that the emergency braking system that was meant to hold it in place appears to have failed, meaning the cabin would have started sliding back down the wire.
It was then that the traction cable snapped, sending the carriage and those in it swinging into a nearby pylon ‘at full speed’, according to the boss of the firm that runs the cable car.
The cabin then plummeted nearly 100ft into the tree-covered ravine below, with its metal walls crumpled by thick branches as it split into pieces.
Parts of it became lodged in the tree canopy while other bits of debris rolled down the slope, with the people inside thrown across the forest, Italian media reports.
All but one of those on board lost their lives, with the Israeli man incredibly found by rescue teams among the mangled wreckage, along with the body of his partner and the three other passengers, some two hours after the alarm was first raised.
In this photo released by the Italian Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps on Thursday, April 17, 2025, rescuers reach for the smashed gondola of the Mt. Faito cable car near Naples in southern Italy
The mangled wreckage is seen among dense woodland in an aerial shot of the scene
The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia said that the cable car had ‘just twenty to twenty-five seconds left’ of its journey when the tragedy struck
The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, Luigi Vicinanza, said that the cable car had ‘just twenty to twenty-five seconds left’ of its journey when the tragedy struck.
At the same time as disaster was unfolding at the top of the mountain, the cable car which had almost reached the station at the bottom of the mountain also ground to a halt.
On board the downhill cabin was a total of 16 people – a German family-of-five, two tourists and some exchange students – each of whom was safely lowered in a harness from the suspended carriage by rescue teams.
But there was no word from the cabin near the top of the route, with thick fog and black clouds obscuring visibility and desperate attempts to radio the driver for updates proving unsuccessful.
‘We can’t see them. And we can’t even contact Parlato by radio. He’s not answering us,’ one of the workers from the cable car station reportedly said on the walkie talkie.
Helicopters were sent out to scour the scene, with aerial pictures soon showing that the cabin was no longer suspended and had fallen into the woodland below.
The difficult terrain and adverse weather conditions, including high winds and fog which obscured visibility, meant it took emergency services some two hours to get to the wreckage and discover what had happened to the cabin and those on board.
‘There’s someone breathing,’ one of the rescuers combing the scene is said to have shouted as they came across the sole survivor.
The man was seriously injured, suffering multiple bone fractures, and was airlifted to hospital in Naples where he remains in a ‘critical but stable’ condition, according to an update on Friday morning.
The patient is ‘intubated for airway protection and ventilatory support’ and ‘currently mechanically ventilated under deep sedation,’ with doctors adding that his prognosis remains guarded.
Prosecutors have now launched a manslaughter probe into yesterday’s disaster, with the reason as to why the two cable cars on the route ground to a halt still unclear.
One of the victims has been named as cable car driver Carmine Parlato, 59, a married father-of-one from the Naples area
Four people have died and one is seriously injured after a cable car crashed to the ground in Monte Faito
Rescuers on the site where a cable car carrying tourists south of Naples has crashed after the cable snapped, killing at least four people and injuring one in Castellamare di Stabia, near Naples, Italy
Officials have said that they still do not know why the traction cable gave way, but suggested that the emergency brake system failed to work.
The lower cabin’s brake system appeared to work and it remained suspended, with the eight tourists and operator inside evacuated by rescuers.
Footage shared on social media showed a survivor being lowered out of the cable car and towards the ground.
The Torre Annunziata public prosecutor’s office confirmed it has opened an investigation into the disaster, though it is unclear who is under investigation.
The scenic cable car has been taking tourists and Neopolitans to the summit of Monte Faito for decades since it first opened in 1952, with the mountain popular for the panoramic views it offers of the bay of Naples and Vesuvius.
Thursday’s tragedy was not the first on the historic cableway. On August 15, 1960, one of the cabins reached the bottom without being able to stop its run.
It fell on to the underlying tracks of the Circumvesuviana railway line, killing four people and injuring 31.
The cable car underwent significant maintenance work in the aftermath and the cabins were replaced.
Umberto de Gregorio, the head of the company which owns the cable car, insisted today that it reopened last week ‘with all the required safety conditions’ after three months of maintenance work.
‘What happened today is an unimaginable, unforeseeable tragedy,’ he said. ‘We are devastated, the cable car is a jewel in the crown.
‘We have been testing for three months. The company has done everything it had to in terms of safety and for this reason no one can explain what happened. It will certainly have to be ascertained, but it will take time’.
Describing the series of events that unfolded yesterday, he went on: ‘The towing cable of the cabin that was going up broke.
Around 16 passengers were evacuated from another cabin at the bottom of the cableway, with footage showing how tourists were removed from the cabin one by one using harnesses
The Monte Faito cable car connects the historic town of Castellammare di Stabia with Monte Faito
‘The cabin downstream had no consequences, it just got stuck and all the people were saved.
‘The cabin upstream, however, we believe went at full speed against the pylon and then fell.’
Strong winds hit the area at the time sparking speculation that the adverse weather may have caused the accident, but Mr de Gregorio denied this.
‘There is a complex system that blocks the cable car when the wind exceeds the warning level, so it was not that’.
Speaking on the tragic accident, Naples mayor Gaetano Manfredi said: ‘I express deep condolences, on behalf of the Metropolitan City of Naples and myself, for the victims of the tragedy that occurred this afternoon due to the collapse of the Faito cable car cabin.’
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is currently in Washington attending talks with US President Donald Trump, has also offered her condolences.
The horrific accident on Thursday happened just a week after the site reopened for the season
A statement shared by by the Italian government said: ‘Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is in Washington for a meeting with US President Donald Trump, learned of the tragic accident that occurred today on the Monte Faito cable car and wishes to express, on behalf of the Italian Government and her own, her closeness and deepest condolences to the families of the victims and the injured.’
President Meloni is in contact with the Minister for Civil Protection Nello Musumeci and the Head of the Department Fabio Ciciliano.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement: ‘We are dealing with an incident in Italy and are in contact with the local authorities. Our thoughts are with those affected.’
Italy has been rocked by cable car tragedies in the past, with 14 people killed when a wire snapped and flung a carriage 65ft to the ground in 2021.
Firefighters near Castellammare di Stabia responding to the tragedy on Monte Faito
The cable car had been carrying the passengers up a mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore in the western Alps when it dropped 1,000ft from the station.
Disturbing footage of the disaster shows how close the passengers were to safety before the cabin shot down the mountain.
It shows a cable snapping, sending the car and its passengers inside careening back down as they were brutally thrown around the cabin.
In separate video, the carriage can be seen flying off and falling out of view behind the crest of a hill where it crashed, killing 14 of the 15 people on board.
In another gondola disaster, 20 people were killed in the Dolomites when a US airforce pilot crashed into the cables holding a carriage full of holidaymakers.
The 1998 tragedy in Cavalese came 22 years after another in the same town, which saw 43 people killed when their cabin skidded 300 feet and was crushed.