Helicopter pilot charged over deadly cable car accident
20/03/2006 - 17:15:25
An Austrian state prosecutor today indicted a helicopter pilot involved in a cable car accident that killed nine German skiers last year after his chopper dropped heavy equipment on a ski lift.
Three adults and six youths aged between 12 and 14 died in the accident six months ago near the Austrian alpine resort of Soelden after a mechanical hook beneath the helicopter let go of a tub weighing nearly 700 kilograms used to transport concrete.
The pilot was charged with contravening air transport regulations by flying over the area used by the cable cars.
He was not identified by the prosecutor’s office, but has been named previously by Austrian media as Markus Jaeger.
The tub hit the lift, sending one of its gondolas plunging 30 meters onto a rocky mountainside.
Other victims were catapulted out of two other gondolas. Seven people survived their injuries.