A preliminary investigation indicates that a connecting cable broke before Wednesday’s deadly funicular crash in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon that killed at least 16 people and injured several others.

A probe conducted by the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Accidents in Civil Aviation and Rail (GPIAAF) found that a steel cable connecting the historic Glória funicular’s two carriages had “given way” shortly after they began their respective journeys along Calçada da Glória, the narrow street where the funicular operated.

A scheduled inspection had been conducted on the morning of the incident, which detected “no anomalies in the vehicles’ cable or braking systems,” the report, published Saturday, said. It added that it was “not possible” to see the condition of the section where the cable broke.

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This resulted in the carriage at the top of the street increasing in speed down the slope and later derailing, GPIAAF’s report found. “The first collision occurred at a speed of around 60 km/h (around 37 miles per hour), with all these events having occurred in a timeframe of less than 50 seconds,” the report said, based on initial estimates.

No firm conclusions can yet be drawn regarding the exact causes of the incident as further investigation is needed, GPIAAF said.

Funiculars use a counterweight pulley system so that when one car of a funicular descends, the other car can ascend. The two Glória carriages had traveled no further than about six meters when they “suddenly lost the balancing force provided by the cable connecting them,” the probe found.

The report said that it was “immediately clear” that the cable connecting the two carriages had “given way at its attachment point” inside the upper car – the one that began its journey at the top of Calçada da Glória. A photo in the report shows a large, frayed cable on the ground.

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When the cable broke, the report says that the upper cabin’s brakeman “immediately applied the pneumatic brake and the hand brake to try to halt the movement,” but these actions had “no effect in stopping or reducing the cabin’s speed, and it continued accelerating down the slope.”

In their current configuration, the carriage’s air brake and manual brake “do not have sufficient capacity to stop the cabins in motion without their empty masses being mutually balanced by the connecting cable,” the report added.

A woman sits next to a makeshift memorial honoring the victims of the funicular crash on Friday. – Pedro Nunes/Reauters

The rest of the cable and the pulleys through which it runs were “without apparent significant anomalies,” the report said.

In addition, the cable itself, which had been installed 337 days prior to the incident, was said to have a “defined useful life of 600 days.”

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Among those killed in the incident were five Portuguese citizens, three Britons, two Canadians, two South Koreans, and individuals from Switzerland, Ukraine, the US and France were confirmed to have died, Portugal’s Judicial Police said in a statement Friday.

A full preliminary report into the incident is expected to be published within 45 days, GPIAAF said, followed by a final report within a year.

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According to investigators’ initial findings, the Lisbon funicular crashed at a speed of 60km/h (37mph). Photograph: Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images

A cable linking two cabins snapped shortly before the funicular crash that killed 16 people in Lisbon this week, hours after the cable had passed a visual check, accident inspectors have said.

The information came in a note on Wednesday’s crash published by Portugal’s air and rail accident investigations bureau (GPIAAF).

“According to the evidence observed so far, the scheduled maintenance plan was up to date, and a scheduled visual inspection had been conducted on the morning of the accident, which detected no anomalies in the vehicles’ cable or braking systems,” the agency note said on Saturday.

But it had not been possible to visually inspect the condition of the section of the cable where it separated from the vehicle before the crash, it added.

According to the investigators’ initial findings, the funicular crashed at a speed of 60km/h (37mph). The whole incident happened in just 50 seconds, they added.

Investigators had already announced that 11 foreign nationals were among the 16 people killed in Wednesday’s crash. Three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians, one Frenchwoman, one Swiss, one American and one Ukrainian were identified among the victims.

In all, about 20 people were injured, including at least 11 foreign nationals, the emergency services have said.

[ How Lisbon’s funiculars workOpens in new window ]

The Portuguese victims included four members of staff from the same social care institution, whose offices are situated at the top of the steep side-road serviced by the funicular.

Two separate investigations are now under way into the crash: one carried out by the accident investigators’ office and another by the prosecutors’ office. The GPIAAF stressed in its note that the two investigations were entirely independent of each other.

It will publish a preliminary report into the crash within 45 days, it added.

Local media speculation about the cause of the crash had already mentioned ruptured high-tension cables and maintenance work overseen by Lisbon’s public transport operator, Carris.

The head of Carris, Pedro Bogas, has repeatedly defended the company’s equipment maintenance policy, insisting that procedures had been “scrupulously followed”.

Portuguese media have published the report of the daily inspection conducted on the morning of the tragedy, which indicated the operating system was running smoothly.

According to the weekly publication Expresso, the number of passengers using the three funiculars operated by Carris in Lisbon jumped by 53 per cent between 2022 and 2024, to 1.5 million passengers last year. – Guardian

Investigators added that the brakeman of one of the carriages applied the brakes, but that this didn’t have sufficient capacity to prevent the disaster.

Both carriages had travelled only six meters after leaving their stations on Wednesday, around 6 p.m., when the cable connecting them snapped, the report said.

Sixteen people died in Wednesday’s crash, among them 11 foreigners: five Portuguese, two South Koreans, one Swiss, three Brits, two Canadians, one Ukrainian, one American and one French.

Lisbon is holding local elections next month, with incumbent Carlos Moedas, a former European Commissioner, seeking a second term.

The funicular accident that killed 16 people in Lisbon resulted from “the disconnection of the cable between the two cabins” that were connected, the Air and Rail Accident Investigation Bureau revealed on Saturday, without explaining at this stage the causes of the disaster.

“The scheduled visual inspection, carried out on the morning of the accident, did not detect any anomaly in the cable”, the investigators said in their first note, which is supposed to reflect confirmed findings and not precise conclusions on the causes of the accident.

The cable used normally has “a useful life of 600 days”, whereas the one in place at the time of the accident “had been installed 337 days ago”, the investigators also said, adding that the area where “the cable broke is not visible without dismantling”.

Since Wednesday’s accident, the head of Lisbon’s transport operator, Carris, has repeatedly stated that the maintenance work, which had been carried out for several years by a subcontractor, had always been completed on time.

Also read: Fifteen dead in Lisbon after iconic tourist tram car derails

The Gloria funicular, which in its current configuration dates back to 1914, is made up of two yellow carriages with a capacity of 42 people, which go up and down alternately by means of a system of counterweights, a 45 metre difference in height over a length of 276 metres, “with an average gradient of 18%”, according to the GPIAAF investigators.

And according to the initial findings of the investigation revealed on Saturday, the impact when the funicular hit a building after rolling down the city centre street where the accident took place “occurred at a speed of around 60 km/h”.

“The cabins are connected to each other by a cable that balances their weight via a large reversible wheel located at the top of Calçada da Glória in an underground technical compartment”, the investigators said, stressing that the cable linking the two carriages was buried.

“At 18:00 on 3 September, the Gloria funicular had its cabins parked in their respective stations”, they said, adding that the precise number of passengers in each cabin is not known at this stage.

A few minutes later, the cabins began their journey but “a few moments after departure and after having travelled approximately six metres, (they) suddenly lost the balancing force guaranteed by the connecting cable”.

“Car no. 2 (at the bottom of the track) suddenly moved backwards (…). Cabin no. 1, at the top of Calçada da Glória, continued its downward movement, increasing its speed”, despite the driver’s attempts to brake it, said the GPIAAF investigators.

“Approximately 170 metres into its journey, at the start of the right-hand curve that the Calçada alignment presents in its final section, the vehicle, due to its speed, derailed and began to overturn”, they added.

“The vehicle lost its guidance completely, hitting the top of the cab sideways against the wall of the building on the left-hand side of the Calçada, initiating the destruction of the wooden body, then colliding head-on with a public lamppost and a support for the lift’s overhead electrical network, both made of cast iron, which caused very significant damage to the body, and shortly afterwards ending its uncontrolled movement against the corner of another building”, they concluded.

The GPIAAF plans to publish a preliminary report within 45 days, detailing the initial findings of the investigation, and the final report, which will make any safety recommendations, within a year.

If this deadline cannot be met, the investigators do not rule out publishing an interim report to take stock of the investigation.

The funicular accident caused a stir in Portugal and around the world. The latest death toll stands at 16, including five Portuguese and eleven foreigners (three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians, a Frenchwoman, a Swiss, an American and a Ukrainian), as well as around twenty injured.

(This article was translated from French using AI, and edited by Kabir Agarwal)

As per the initial findings, the accident happened in under 50 seconds, and the inspectors said the two cabins had travelled not more than about 6 metres (20 feet) when they suddenly lost the balancing force provided by the connecting cable.

The cable linking the two cabin cars had given way shortly before the deadly funicular crash in the Portuguese capital Lisbon that killed at least 16 people and injured 22 others, revealed the first investigative report released on Saturday. The report by Portugal’s Air and Rail Accident Investigations Bureau (GPIAAF) said that the cable had cleared a visual check a few hours before the derailment. “According to the evidence observed so far, the scheduled maintenance plan was up to date, and a scheduled visual inspection had been conducted on the morning of the accident, which detected no anomalies in the vehicles’ cable or braking systems,” says the report.

The Gloria funicular—a yellow railway car that travels up and down a steep slope in central Lisbon—veered off its tracks near Avenida da Liberdade and crashed into a building, leaving 16 people dead and 21 injured last Wednesday.

Other findings of the probe

Inspectors said the two cabins had travelled not more than about 6 metres (20 feet) when they suddenly lost the balancing force provided by the connecting cable. As per the initial findings, the accident happened in under 50 seconds.

After inspection of the wreckage at the scene, it was “immediately clear that the connecting cable had given way” at the point where it was attached to the cabin at the top of the hill, the report said. The yellow-and-white streetcar that crashed had been in use since 1914.

“Cabin No. 2 suddenly reversed, its movement halting approximately 10 metres beyond due to its partial excursion past the end of the track and the burial of the underside of the trambolho (trolley) at the end of the cable trench,” it added.

“Cabin No. 1, at the top of Calcada da Gloria, continued its downward movement, increasing its speed. The cabin’s brakeman immediately applied the pneumatic brake and the hand brake to try to halt the movement. These actions had no effect in stopping or reducing the cabin’s speed, and it continued accelerating down the slope,” the report added.

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Two separate investigations underway

Two separate investigations are being conducted to ascertain the cause of the accident: one is being carried out by the GPIAAF and another by the prosecutors’ office.

The GPIAAF underlined in its report that the two investigations are “completely independent and have distinct purposes.”

It added that a preliminary report will be published within 45 days.

A final report mentioning “the established facts, its analysis, conclusions regarding the causes of the accident, and, if applicable, safety recommendations” is likely to be published later.

The GPIAFF also said that if a final report isn’t possible within one year, an interim report will be published instead.