Sabotaging a Gondola?

The gondola carries 400,000 visitors annually  Maggie MacPherson/CBC

"I'm sitting here looking up at the line and the echoes of last year are just all too loud for me. We're all a bit stunned and shocked." 

"The information is effectively identical to last year."

"We have lots of surveillance information that the RCMP are working with right now."

"...This individual moved swiftly and moved with great knowledge to the exact location that they needed to conduct this act as quickly as they did."

"This individual has no regard for their own life and limb. It's clear what happened, there's no doubt about that." 

"I am completely confident that compared to the information the RCMP had last time, versus this time, it’s a new world. And I think that’s probably all I can really say about that at this point in time."

Kirby Brown, General Manager, Sea to Sky Gondola, Squamish, B.C. 

"It was deliberate. It wasn't an accident."

"[There are] lots of theories around what happened last year. Seven, eight hours into an investigation ... we're not going to know [why it happened]."

"We are only a few hours into this investigation and we ask the public to stay out of the area."

"The Sea to Sky Gondola is an integral part of this community and we are very lucky no one was injured. Someone in our area has seen something or has heard something and we are asking them to call us immediately with any information."

Sgt.Sascha Banks, RCMP 

 

On almost the one-year anniversary of the previous act of vandalism at this most popular of tourist attractions where the gondolas rise up a steep embankment to overlook Howe Sound in British Columbia, an extraordinarily similar event took place on Monday. Last year, a report from Technical Safety B.C., concluded there had been no structural defects with the gondola line. Sabotage and nothing else, a risky act when the cable was cut and it sheared through completely under tension. 

 

"Anyone close to the gondola when this occurred could have been seriously hurt or killed", commented Jeff Coleman, at the time director of risk and safety knowledge with the government safety body. 

 

Now, for the second consecutive year, someone with the requisite skill and inside knowledge climbed one of the towers to cut the cable early on Monday morning at the Sea to Sky Gondola ride which operates to bring visitors to a lookout point on a ten-minute ride. On the earlier occasion the cable holding the gondola cars was sliced, then the remaining cable strands snapped under stress, the result being to cast 30 cabins tumbling to the ground.

A gondola is seen on the ground after the first vandalism incident in 2019. Depending on where the line snapped, the metal cabins could have fallen up to 300 metres before slamming into the mountainside. (Squamish RCMP )

There are as yet no suspects, but the public is being urged to be vigilant to anything suspicious that might appear online and to report to police anything that might be suspected of someone's involvement in the incident. Although no details have yet been forthcoming about Monday's cable cutting, the August 2019 incident involved a cable about five centimetres in diameter, steel with a plastic core strung along towers, more than four kilometres in length. 

It remains unclear how the cable was cut given that the technical report on the damage done last year has been redacted, the portion explaining how it was cut, blanked out (undoubtedly with the intention of keeping sensitive information from the attention of any potential wannabe-actors). According to the gondola's manager, it seems obvious that the person involved -- whoever that might be -- possessed both the tools to cut the cable and the experience to manage it. 

The Sea To Sky Gondola Squamish, BC. Nick Procaylo/Postmedia

The incident in 2019 cost $10 million in  repairs, the gondola had to be shuttered for six months to allow repairs to be completed, and it was not re-opened until February. A month on, it was closed again this time because of  COVID-19 lockdown. In late May it was finally reopened. In the interim the gondola company had installed a "world-class security surveillance system" to detect movement around the clock, in all weather conditions, to ensure a repeat of the first incident would not recur. Evidently even a 'world-class security surveillance system' was no match for the cunning and determination of the malefactor.

 

The reaction to an emergency call from the general manager to police saw the RCMP respond within minutes of the collapse. RCMP  cars patrolled the highway in a search for a suspicious vehicle. In the dark,experienced searchers had a dog team looking on the ground searching for a possible suspect. The event is regarded by the RCMP as a situation of criminal mischief.