 Poster: A snowHead
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BESANCON (Associated Press) – On Friday the Besançon Court (Doubs) found four directors of the Piquemiette (Jura) resort management company guilty of involuntary manslaughter, further to the death of a young woman caught in an avalanche on the 18th of February 1999, a spokesman for the court has informed us.
The Piquemiette (part of the Metabief – Doubs - domain) director and deputy director, were given a suspended 9 months sentence and a 4,000 euro fine, as well as 3 years’ probation. The Doubs valley resort management company has also been ordered to pay a 20,000 euro fine.
The management was found guilty of failing to guarantee piste security. Those sentenced have been banned from working in the ski industry during the probationary period. The sentences are considerably lighter than those demanded by the prosecution.
Arlène Duval, the victim, left with her family for a skiing holiday in the Alps. Because of the bad weather they stopped in Metabief. Arlène and a friend had taken the Roches chairlift, and had just split up to take two separate pistes. It was then that the avalanche struck. She died, and her friend was injured. |
This accident happened at 10.45 am, at 1400m, in the lee of the Swiss slopes of the Mont d’Or; a wall of snow four metres high hit the the chairlift set-down point. Arlène was buried, and when the rescuers found her she was suffering from severe hypothermia. She died later that same day.
We’ve discussed the risks of skiing off-piste, but just how safe are the runs themselves from this type of accident? Is the punishment meted out, 5 years after the event, sufficient to ensure that the maximum possible precautions are taken? If the ‘moving carpet’ incident is found to have resulted from negligence, what do snowHeads think an appropriate punishment should be for those responsible?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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PG, do you have any more details of the accident in 1999?
As for punishment: I think they were all punished enough by the death of the young woman. I suspect the family might not agree. Justice and vengeance are sometimes hard to distinguish.
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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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She was just setting off down a blue slope. A dangerous cornice above this point had actually been partly destroyed with explosives a couple of weeks before the accident. (15 avalanches in total actually hit groomed runs in France in 1998 and 1999 - I don't have more recent figures.)
In France, article L. 223-1 of the Penal Code covers the responsibility of the designated management should any of the necessary security or due care regulations be flouted. A maximum prison term of 1 year, and a fine of approx 15,000 euros can be imposed.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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It was an act of God, but (according to your description, PG) a predictable act of God if the cornice was an obvious threat. The degree of the threat, and the resort management's response to it, was presumably the subject of expert evidence to the court (or, more likely, a matter of investigation by the Judge, since it was a French incident).
The ski patrol have the responsibility of opening pistes in the morning and closing them in the afternoon. The former is done on the basis of the perceived safety of the run itself, and any perceived threat from avalanches.
Buying a lift pass is normally taken to assure you a professional standard of lift safety and piste safety. Off-piste safety is quite another matter.
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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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| David Goldsmith wrote: |
| The degree of the threat, and the resort management's response to it, was presumably the subject of expert evidence to the court (or, more likely, a matter of investigation by the Judge, since it was a French incident). |
The day after the accident an investigation team was named by the public prosecutor, including CEMAGRAF (Agricultural and Environmental Research Institute) scientists, as well as Méteo France specialists. The convictions were based on their report.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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PG, 15 avalanches in a year hitting groomed runs must just cover ones that happened while pistes were open (?)
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snowball, The only report I have seen isn't more specific.... but I would have thought so.
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Any resort should check an overhanging cornice daily. I would expect it to be"blown" before it became a cornice actually. Last season the pisteurs closed all the runs down the Grand Nord in LDA one afternoon because they were concerned about the possibility of avalanche above the run .............. you should have heard the complaints from all the bods who wanted to ski down and ended up on the lifts! 
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