September 2025: almost four and a half years after the tragic afternoon of 23 May 2021, the court in Verbania handed down its sentences for the Stresa-Mottarone cable car disaster. For the first time in the recent history of Italian cable cars, the people responsible for a mass-casualty accident have been found criminally guilty and given significant prison terms. It is more than a verdict: it is a watershed that reshapes the safety culture of the whole industry.
The case shook public opinion in Italy and across Europe, and it raises questions that go far beyond the courtroom. How safe is the network of cable cars, chairlifts and gondolas that carries millions of people up Italy’s mountains every year? What actually changes after this verdict? And what can passengers do to travel with more awareness?
The Mottarone disaster: what happened on 23 May 2021
On 23 May 2021, shortly after eleven in the morning, the cabin of the Stresa-Mottarone cable car came loose from its haul rope as it was covering the last stretch of the climb to the summit of the Mottarone, in Piedmont. The cabin slid backwards along the track rope, picking up speed, and crashed into a support tower before falling into the woods on the Lake Maggiore side of the mountain. Fourteen people were killed. Two children survived; both were pulled out by the rescuers with serious injuries.
The tragedy struck whole families. Among the victims were couples with young children, visitors enjoying a spring Sunday by the lake. The image of the wrecked cabin among the trees went round the world.
The technical cause: the ‘forchettoni’
The investigation by the Carabinieri environmental unit and the Verbania public prosecutor quickly established the technical cause of the accident. The cabin’s brake clamps had been manually fitted with mechanical locking devices known in the trade as forchettoni (‘big forks’). In normal operation these devices must be removed: their purpose is to stop the cabin moving during maintenance or in an emergency.
Investigators found that the forchettoni had been deliberately left in place to hide a fault in the cabin’s main braking system. The emergency brake had not been working properly for weeks. Instead of stopping the lift and carrying out repairs, with the cost and disruption that would have meant, the operators chose to keep the emergency brake blocked with the manual devices. The cable car kept running with its safety seriously compromised.
When the haul rope snapped, the emergency brake, the only system designed to stop the cabin sliding back, could not engage. The forchettoni were still in place.
The verdict: the sentences and what they mean in law
The trial before the Verbania court ended in September 2025 with the conviction of the three main defendants:
- Enrico Tadini (former operations manager of the lift): 4 years and 5 months in prison
- Enrico Perocchio (operations manager): 3 years and 11 months in prison
- Luigi Nerini (owner of the operating company, Ferrovie del Mottarone): 3 years and 10 months in prison
The convictions were for multiple manslaughter and causing a disaster through negligence. The court found that deliberately tampering with safety systems is an extremely serious breach of the duty of care and maintenance that falls on anyone running a public transport system.
Why the verdict matters beyond this case
The individual sentences are only part of the story. For decades, Italian cable cars operated in a system where individual criminal responsibility was hard to pursue, spread thin between operators, concession holders, public bodies and maintenance firms. The Mottarone convictions send an unmistakable message: whoever runs a public transport lift is personally answerable, including under criminal law, for operating decisions that put passengers at risk.
For the victims’ families, the verdict is a partial form of justice. For the industry, it is a precedent that is bound to change behaviour and working practices on every lift in Italy.
Other tragedies: Monte Faito and the European picture
The Mottarone is not an isolated case among recent cable car accidents. April 2025 brought another Italian tragedy: on the Monte Faito cable car in Campania, four people died when a cable broke. The accident immediately sparked controversy over the authorisation to reopen the line, which already had a long history of closures, upgrade works and bureaucratic disputes. Its contested reopening, after years out of service, raised questions about how thorough the technical checks had been.
The European picture is no more reassuring. In 2025 Lisbon saw one of the worst cable-hauled transport disasters in recent European history: a funicular accident killed 15 people. The Portuguese tragedy led several European governments to order extraordinary checks on their own lifts, fuelling a Europe-wide debate on whether current safety standards are enough.
An industry under pressure
Taken together, these accidents paint a worrying picture. They are not isolated cases of extraordinary bad luck. They are a systemic signal that, in many countries, the procedures for maintenance, inspection and accountability on cable-hauled transport need a thorough overhaul.
The state of Italy’s cable cars: age and maintenance
Italy has one of the densest lift networks in Europe, with thousands of installations across the Alps and the Apennines. Browsing the Funivie.it lift directory shows a mixed picture: alongside state-of-the-art lifts built in the last ten years with the latest safety technology, a significant share of the network is old.
According to industry figures, more than 90% of Italian lifts have been in service for over twenty years. That does not automatically mean they are unsafe (a well-maintained lift can run safely for decades), but it calls for a serious look at how much money goes into maintenance and modernisation.
The maintenance question
Oversight of Italian lifts rests on a web of responsibilities involving the private operators, the regions (which grant the concessions), the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and USTIF, the special office for fixed-installation transport. Periodic inspections are required by law, but how often they happen, how thorough they are and what follows from them vary widely from region to region.
The Mottarone case showed that the weak point is not necessarily a lack of formal inspections. It is the possibility that operators tamper with safety systems between one inspection and the next, without any record and without telling the authorities.
Investing in new lifts
Several Italian ski areas are investing heavily in replacing their oldest lifts with new-generation technology. Modern gondolas have real-time electronic monitoring, redundant brakes, continuous logging of operating data and automatic alarms. These technologies do not remove the human factor, but they add layers of automated control that make undetected tampering much harder.
What changes after the verdict: the new rules
The Mottarone verdict has sped up a review of the rules that was already under way. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has launched a full review of the safety code for cable-hauled installations, to close the gaps that emerged during the investigation.
The key points of the review
The priority areas identified by the authorities include:
Traceable maintenance. One lesson of the Mottarone trial is how hard it was to reconstruct the history of the work done on the lift. The review aims to make a certified, tamper-proof digital record of every technical intervention compulsory, signed by the technical manager.
Mandatory fault reporting. Any anomaly in the primary safety systems (brakes, grips, emergency stop systems) will have to be reported to USTIF within a very short time. Failure to do so should lead to automatic suspension of the service.
More frequent checks on critical safety systems. Components with a primary safety function (emergency brakes, grips, load-bearing structures) will have to be inspected more often, by inspectors independent of the operator.
Certified personal responsibility. As already happens in other areas of public transport, operations managers of lifts are expected to need an individual certification, with named responsibility for the operating condition of the lift.
New age thresholds for special overhauls. Lifts above a certain age will have to undergo more thorough special overhauls, whatever the result of the regular periodic inspections.
The impact on the industry
The new rules will bring extra costs for lift operators, especially those running older lifts. Some trade associations have raised concerns about small operators, often local councils or consortia running lifts on thin margins. How to pay for the upgrades, whether through regional, national or European funds, is one of the open questions in the debate.
How to ride cable cars safely: what to check
The safety of a cable car depends first and foremost on the people who design, build and run it. Passengers have neither the access nor the technical knowledge to check the brakes or the structures. There are, however, some visible signs that can help you make an informed choice.
Before you board
Check that the lift is properly authorised. Lifts open to the public must clearly display an up-to-date operating licence with its expiry date. A lift with no visible licence, or an expired one, should not be used.
Look at the general condition of the lift. Visibly battered cabins, rusty structures or machinery making unusual noises are signs worth noticing. You do not need to be an engineer to recognise obvious neglect.
Check that staff are present. A properly run lift has trained staff at the bottom and top stations, able to handle emergencies and answer passengers’ questions.
Find out about the lift’s history. Resources such as the Funivie.it directory of Italian cable cars give information on the age and type of each lift and on any recent overhauls.
During the ride
Read the safety instructions displayed in the cabin. If anything seems wrong (unusual noises, strange vibrations, sudden stops), stay calm and follow the staff’s instructions. Do not try to open the doors or leave the cabin on your own.
Report problems
If you see something that looks irregular, such as missing staff, visibly damaged safety equipment or careless operators, you have the right, and the duty, to report it to USTIF and to the body that granted the concession. A culture of reporting is an essential part of any effective safety system.
Conclusion
The Mottarone verdict is belated justice for fourteen people and their families. It is also, and perhaps above all, a warning to a whole industry. Safety systems only work if they are respected rigorously, every day, whatever the economic or operational pressure. Choosing to disable an emergency brake to avoid a temporary closure is not a technical decision. It is a moral one, with consequences that can be irreversible.
Italy has an extraordinary network of cable cars and lifts that links its mountains and makes them accessible. Protecting that network also means demanding that it runs to the highest safety standards. The review launched by the Ministry of Infrastructure is a necessary step, but rules are not enough without an operating culture in which safety is never sacrificed to profit.
To learn more about the technical details and the state of the lifts in your area, see the full directory of Italian cable cars on Funivie.it.