 Poster: A snowHead
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@valais2, no information on this. However, broken bones aren't generally classed as serious. It could be (and this is speculation) that some of the 5 still in hospital broke bones that have required surgery and therefore still in hospital.
It could also be that as the ski area/state are paying for the medical bills that they've said to make sure everyone is tip top before they're released. In some kind of PR stunt - we got the best care imaginable type scenario. Again just speculation.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| valais2 wrote: |
| I have taken a look at all the press coverage and so far the sum injuries seem 11, with 5 remaining in hospital with ‘minor injuries’. This doesn’t quite stack up. ... |
Agree initially surprising, but if you look back at the video almost everyone who jumps off before the base of the lift manages to get up and walk/scramble away. The snow must have been quite soft.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| ecureuil wrote: |
| valais2 wrote: |
| I have taken a look at all the press coverage and so far the sum injuries seem 11, with 5 remaining in hospital with ‘minor injuries’. This doesn’t quite stack up. ... |
Agree initially surprising, but if you look back at the video almost everyone who jumps off before the base of the lift manages to get up and walk/scramble away. The snow must have been quite soft. |
you will find that adrenaline masks many injuries initially, I bet o lot of those jumpers have ligament injuries that don't require a hospital stay.
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Looking at the footage the lift is clearly still being driven electrically, the weight of the people would not cause the lift to fall back in that manner and there will be multiple safety systems to stop the lift from falling back both mechanically and electrically. It could be that the "E Stop" is not functioning and thus when hitting the button it does nothing, but in order to do this you would have to physical wire relays incorrectly and possibly/also alter code in the PLC just to get the machine to function in the first place and if this has been done it's not the cause of the fault but a problem when coming to stop the machine in an emergency. For the lift to run backwards it would require either a gearbox to be put in reverse or a motor to be put into reverse and both of these would require human intervention either by pressing a button, physically reversing the phases on a motor or by manually altering a box, the pressing of a button is most likely as the other two involve technical intervention.
If I was to guess then I would say that when you look at the video there is a large lift que formed, possibly there has been a problem with the lift and it has stopped, then upon start up the operator has managed to put the lift into reverse and the accident has occurred. "IF" this is the case then the start up procedure needs altering so that it can't happen again which will possibly mean altering a lot of lifts around the world.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Jonny996, that’s right ... I have had some very serious injuries and it was astonishing how shock and adrenaline masked the extent of the injury. The real pain kicked in a lot later. And was BAD.
The jumpers seemed to benefit from a deep layer of soft snow - very fortunate.
But two or three appeared to have been rendered immediately unconscious and they were subject to a lot of energy - the guy under the chairs who was carried around the bull wheel early; another I think shortly after this first person also in the tangle of chairs; and the person in red/orange sitting alone on the chair and thrown really violently into the wreckage - this person is I think the person lying prone, unconscious on the ground. Unconscious for that period tends to be not good.
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@dp, ....dp come in....is it running in reverse under power as martski suggests? It’s whining, but gearboxes whine anyway, and gravity-driven tests show the same speeds and effects. But another post says that the lift was under repair for the days before - hmmm....maybe as is suggested there was an error in the repair....
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The rollback test in the video from the States is equally violent and that is purely gravity driven.
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from various sources in russian social media. All rumors and speculations, mind you.
That chairlift had been out of service for almost a week due to "issues with control system" whatever that means. Also the electricity supply had been very intermittent for several days. Whether the two issues are linked or not, it's not clear. May be the "issue" was that it refused to run the lift with mains supply going down all the time and backup generators kicking in.
They eventually "fixed" the issue and launched it. The incident happened within minutes of that.
Some sources say the the control system enters "limp home mode" with fully manual operation when running on backup generators and they did something to defeat that, thereby disabling the emergency braking system.
Hard to believe for western minds, but unfortunately sounds all too plausible for a post soviet country, where the primary tool for fixing things is a sledgehammer.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Matrski,
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Looking at the footage the lift is clearly still being driven electrically, the weight of the people would not cause the lift to fall back in that manner
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How do you come to that conclusion? We've seen videos of other rollbacks that were just driven by gravity and they were even more violent.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Oleski, ...interesting...I am sure that the Austrian crew will be unpicking the maintenance in huge detail as per the American accidents. It does seem like a remarkable co-incidence re start-up after maintenance and the incident.
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@foxtrotzulu, As I say above I may have incorrectly assumed that it was driven as my head instantly said that there would be several systems to stop a run back and having watched again do admit it is running mighty fast. I do still believe that it is most likely caused by human error due to a sequence of button presses/ technical intervention, i guess time will tell 
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Surely there would be phase rotation indicators on the control gear to stop this happening? PLCs would have to be satisfied that this were true. E stops are wired 'normally closed' to stop any of this happening too! To hit an e stop would open the switch to the aux side of the switch gear, stopping any powered movement. Roll back due to shitty maintenance procedure is my educated guess.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| midgetbiker wrote: |
| The rollback test in the video from the States is equally violent and that is purely gravity driven. |
In that US roll back test, the bullwheel was decoupled from the gearbox / motor to reduce friction and maxmise the roll back speed. In many installations, to engage the auxiliary or emergency drive it is necessary to physically disconnect the bullwheel or gear box from the primary drive, having a rollback occur when the bullwheel is not physically connected to a drive would be worst case scenario due to much reduced friction.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I doubt that the amount of resistance through the gear box and motor would be enough to prevent roll back? Drag lifts are prevented from rolling back by pawls on the motor. Occasionally the pawls can stick, as mentioned on page 1, in which case the motor has to be manually braked by pulling on a handle and engaging a simple caliper brake. The weight on the drag lift upline from skiers is easily enough to overcome resistance in the gearbox and motor.
However with a chairlift you are suspending people up in the air where they carnt just let go. Suggests a failure of the brake or some other sort of anti reverse device to me.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Peter S wrote: |
I doubt that the amount of resistance through the gear box and motor would be enough to prevent roll back? Drag lifts are prevented from rolling back by pawls on the motor. Occasionally the pawls can stick, as mentioned on page 1, in which case the motor has to be manually braked by pulling on a handle and engaging a simple caliper brake. The weight on the drag lift upline from skiers is easily enough to overcome resistance in the gearbox and motor.
However with a chairlift you are suspending people up in the air where they carnt just let go. Suggests a failure of the brake or some other sort of anti reverse device to me. |
I didn’t say it would stop it, but with less friction in the system things would get worse faster. If it was a sensor failure or bypass that could be the difference between a manual activation of the e-brake bringing the lift under control or not.
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Think there's a danger of dancing on the head of a pin here, with reference to exactly what went wrong, until some engineers get in there and report.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@midgetbiker, ...exactly right...see my post above...the lift company likely to post a technical analysis next week.
If there’s legal stuff of course it might be delayed/guarded but rather like the airline industry if there are directives to implement across the industry due to a systemic fault being found, then the information will be put out quickly and clearly.
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@valais2, This is not to make light of a serious situation, but reading that press release that you posted above I could not help noticing the name of the pr guy. I would imagine barking that name out quickly would get peoples attention.....
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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IMPORTANT
There really was exceptionally swift action by the state department and a commitment to independent scrutiny - interesting in the wake of other international events....this is from the Doppelmayr Garaventa website:
http://www.economy.ge/index.php?page=news&nw=645&s=preskonferencia-gudauris-incidentis-shesaxeb-biuro-veritasis-pirvelad-daskvnaze&lang=en
Whether this is the last word or not remains to be seen, but operator error is attributed as cause. Which raises the question .... where else and under what circumstances could it happen again...and that is NOT to scaremonger but to ask a serious question regarding training and job design right around the skiing world.
Also:
http://agenda.ge/news/97928/eng
Note that injuries have been updated from ‘minor’ to ‘minor and moderate’. This use of ‘moderate’ may be a precise one. I know this from personal experience. Waking from 8hrs of amnesia I was told ‘you have a moderate brain injury’. So I said ‘good...I thought it was serious...’. I was treating the word as ‘moderate rain....moderately salty cheese....etc’. The consultant looked horrified and said ‘no you misunderstand....’mild’ means no significant damage; ‘moderate’ means you have brain damage which will impair function; ‘serious’ means REALLY BAD...she held up my cycling helmet and said ‘..this saved your life...’.
Moderate damage, 18 years ago.....but hell, I’ve got over it....or at least that’s what I tell everyone else. Main symptom was poor word recognition for a few months....main cause was following someone down a flinty track too closely...won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
I hope that the moderate injuries in the Gudauri case are not too life-changing. At least they have a clear legal case.
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Sounds to me as though changing from mains electric power to diesel generated power, if I have read that right ie not direct diesel drive, is a dodgy operation. Not sure why that should be 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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The snowboarder in red (at 0.33) on his/her own who is clinging to the back of the seat even after what appears to be a warning from a bystander does not jump / walk away. . . .terrifying 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Belch, play it slowly and you can see the red/orange lone sitter has a person stuck on the footrest underneath them! Very scary. And I agree; they then get hurled into the wreckage and do not emerge.
The view from this video makes it very clear even at playing speed:
https://jam-news.net/?p=91665
Footnote
I have now been through the videos in a lot of detail. This seems to be what happened on that chair: for the red person you describe, the three others jump; one gets hooked up in the footrest, pulling the bar down; trapping the red person. Horrible situation.
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Fri 23-03-18 14:57; edited 1 time in total
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OMG apols got my numbers wrong the snowboarders (in reds) partner (in white) gets off at 0.29 but he/she presumably crashes as its out of shot - your correct there's another similar at 0.44 (which I was originally referring to) with the trapped partner beneath that looks even worse . . . .lost for words. Could happen to anyone of us anywhere . . .
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You know it makes sense.
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@Belch, yes...see my footnote above...is that what you are seeing too? ... i am referring to 0.53 on in the video in my past post - the sole sitter in red - bar down.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Yes . . .the first guy (in red) stays trapped at the bottom of a pile of metal for the duration . . .(looking at the other angle his/her partner is thrown clear) These look like more than insignficant injuries - the weight of a 4man chair is probably that of a motorbike . . ?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The Bureau Veritas report states that the lift initially stopped due to a power supply failure. At that point the operator should have switched in a diesel back up generator, but they did not. From details so far published however it remains unclear however why the lift then started to run backwards at speed.
Doesn't really tell us anything. The standby diesel motor(fitted to all electric powered chairlifts) is a means of moving the chairlift for evacuation in the event of a power cut. It is not a means of preventing roll back. As the report says it is unclear why the anti reversing system failed.
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| bambionskiis wrote: |
| jedster wrote: |
Is it just me who wonders about people whose reaction to this is "poo-poo this is nasty better get my phone out to video it!".
I know for sure I'd be either running round the front to shout at people to jump off or helping pick up the pieces round the bull wheel. Wouldn't everyone? |
Absolutely I would too, I just don’t get it why anyone would just stand there filming. Also, where there is a situation where things have gone wrong and I was trying to process what’s happening I definately wouldn’t be stoke face-on; I’d move out to the side. Poor people - stuff of nightmares. |
Whilst I agree with your sentiment the questionable official reporting of the extent of injuries would make me pretty grateful for the video evidence. If this had happened even 20 or so years ago then unless somebody just happened to have a hand held camcorder there would have been nothing to see. In a then recently former communist state the incident might simply have been covered up and denied?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Peter S, ...important to wait for the full reporting - Veritas, Doppelmayr, etc - it surely cannot be simple operator error since this suggests a very high degree of risk in normal operating conditions.
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| valais2 wrote: |
| @Peter S, ...important to wait for the full reporting - Veritas, Doppelmayr, etc - it surely cannot be simple operator error since this suggests a very high degree of risk in normal operating conditions. |
A transfer to an emergency evacuation drive often involves physical disengagement of the bullwheel from the main drive. This would probably in most cases be undertaken by lift maintenance or senior staff rather than general lift operators because the correct procedure has to be followed.
Certainly on older GMD Mueller and Yan fixed grip lifts, the lift controls would be completely powered down to prevent any possibility of resetting the lift during the process. The most critical thing is that the emergency brake is engaged on the bullwheel and that is visually verified before disengaging the drive belts or chains (the service brake will not act directly on the bullwheel, thus can not hold the lift during this process). So there are two opportunities where procedural error could initiate a rollback, disengaging the main drive without the e-brake being fully applied or having disengaged the main drive but not yet connected the lift to the emergency drive, the bullwheel brake is erroneously manually disengaged .
The latter option may in some circumstances be done deliberately to attempt a controlled rollback, but there will always only be a mere second or so between control and out of control. None of these factors may of course have been involved here, so without further information this is really just some background to why the situation could possibly arise.
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I just discovered that a friend of ours was in the lift queue!
If they had been there a minute earlier they would have been on it.
He was in Georgia as part of a charitable project to take a large amount of donated rugby kit from the UK to give to local kid's clubs. The ski trip was an add-on after the main business for a couple of them.
They are ski instructors and consequently also first aid trained and immediately gave what assistance they could.
He is adamant that there are some serious injuries
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@rungsp,
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He is adamant that there are some serious injuries
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I'm not surprised
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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As I'm off to Gudauri tomorrow, I've been following this with interest. I've been surprised by the transparency. There are updates on the landing page of what I believe to be the official website Gudauri.info;
"Despite Georgia's help, Inna needs a very long time to recover. You can support Inna with a small donation to the bank account of her parents (see under the link) or paypal incesticide18@gmail.com . Many thanks to everybody. Only serious Inna's injures: damage to the first vertebra in the lower back, an open splinter fracture of the scapula, an open fracture of the ulna, broken ribs that hurt the lungs and broken the thigh! Inna is in the most critical condition from everyone who was injured in Sadzele Ski"
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| Val Desire wrote: |
As I'm off to Gudauri tomorrow, I've been following this with interest. I've been surprised by the transparency. There are updates on the landing page of what I believe to be the official website Gudauri.info;
"Despite Georgia's help, Inna needs a very long time to recover. You can support Inna with a small donation to the bank account of her parents (see under the link) or paypal incesticide18@gmail.com . Many thanks to everybody. Only serious Inna's injures: damage to the first vertebra in the lower back, an open splinter fracture of the scapula, an open fracture of the ulna, broken ribs that hurt the lungs and broken the thigh! Inna is in the most critical condition from everyone who was injured in Sadzele Ski" |
Have a great trip.
Watching with interest.
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FAQ
