funicular

Oct. 21 (UPI) — A preliminary report released Tuesday about last month’s deadly crash of one of Lisbon’s famed funiculars found that an unapproved underground cable snapped just before the incident.

The Sept. 3 crash of the Elevador da Glória, a 111-year-old two-car funicular that operates the sloping streets of Portugal’s capital, killed 16 people after one of the cars broke free and crashed into a building along the route. More than a dozen other people were injured in the incident.

The preliminary report by Portugal’s Air and Rail Accident Investigations Bureau found that the cause of the crash was an underground cable that snapped, allowing the car at the top of the hill to break free.

Though the cable had a minimum breaking load within the safety parameters of the Glória Funicular, the investigators found the cable was not in compliance with specifications by the city’s transport operator, CCFL.

The haulage cable ran between the two cars and acted as a counterweight between them as one descended the hill and the other ascended from the opposite direction.

The cable broke seconds after the two cars began their 54th trips of the day. While the bottom car abruptly stopped and remained largely in place at the bottom of the hill, the top car lost power and began to increase speed down the hill. According to investigators, the brakeman of the top car attempted to engage the pneumatic brake system, and when that didn’t work, he tried to use the manual brake.

While the brakeman’s maneuvers caused a slight decrease in acceleration, the car was still steadily increasing its speed down the hill. It successfully negotiated the first slight curve in the track, but derailed at the next, sharper bend in the track.

The car then slammed into a building along the route.

Investigators said the haulage cable — multiple strands of twisted steel — showed various breaks in the smaller metal strands that happened at different times.

“The failure occurred progressively over time and involved multiple fracture types,” the report said.

Workers installed the cable between Aug. 26, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2024, as part of what the bureau described as an intermediate repair of the Glória Funicular. This type of cable is commonly used in funiculars, the report said.

However, the manufacturer of the cable said it could not be used with a swivel, a rotating part on the cars that attached them to the cables.

“At this time, it cannot be said whether the use of this type of non-compliant cable intervened, or what intervention it had, in the rupture,” the report said. “And it is certain for the investigation that there were other factors that had to intervene.”

Since the crash, the head of Lisbon’s public transport has been fired and though Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas faced accusations he failed in his oversight of the funiculars, he won re-election Oct. 12, according to the BBC.

He told SIC television the results of the report released Monday “reaffirms that the unfortunate tragedy … was due to technical and not political causes.”

The bureau is expected to release a final report on the crash in September 2026, The New York Times reported.

As Sonia Silva prepared to leave work on Wednesday evening, she was asked by a colleague to help with a quick task.

It meant she missed her regular funicular ride down the hill with a work friend on their commute home from the office in the centre of Lisbon.

When she arrived at the stop a short while later, the funicular had crashed and her friend was dead.

“When I got there, it was a tragedy,” she said.

Sixteen people were killed on Wednesday evening in Lisbon when its iconic 140-year-old Glória funicular derailed and crashed into a building. The Portuguese prime minister has described it as “one of the biggest human tragedies of our recent history”.

Many of those killed were foreign nationals, including three British people whose identities have not yet been announced. Police say five killed were Portuguese – and four of them worked at the Santa Casa da Misericórdia charity, located at the top of the hill.

A service was held on Friday in a church next to the charity’s headquarters, honouring the workers killed in the crash. The service was crowded, with people filling the aisles and any other available space.

As they left, colleagues wept and supported each other as they tried to make sense of what had happened. Several told the BBC that they regularly used the funicular as part of their commute.

Sitting on a bench outside, Sonia said she had worked at the charity for eight years and used the funicular each day.

“I can’t express [how I feel] – it’s very difficult. I am grateful but at the same time I’m very, very angry because my colleagues and lots of people died,” she said.

She said she would travel to and from work each day with her colleague Sandra Coelho.

“I was very fond of her because I always took the funicular with her – going home and in the morning. It’s very difficult because I’m not going to see her anymore,” she said through tears, as colleagues comforted her.

On their commute, she said the two women would gossip and talk about their days.

“We’d talk about colleagues, work, everything. We’d meet in the morning and when we finished,” she said.

Others around the church also mourned the loss of friends and tried to process what had happened.

“It’s awful, we are devastated. It’s difficult to work at the moment,” said Lurdes Henriques.

“We’re always thinking about our colleagues and wondering ‘did they suffer?’ They could be here with us now. We are deeply, deeply sad.”

“It could have been any one of us – all of us used this kind of transport and we felt very confident in it,” said Tania, another worker at the charity.

Rui Franco, a city councillor whose close friend and former colleague Alda Matias was killed in Wednesday’s crash, said he was in shock.

“She was about my age. She had a family, children and I can’t imagine if it was me what would be happening to my family. She was a great person… with a very solid way of acting in the world,” he said.

Mr Franco said he was “already angry” when he first learned of the fatal crash, “then when I understood I knew the people involved, the rage [became] overwhelming”.

While an investigation into the cause of the crash is under way, there was much speculation among mourners.

“It was always overcrowded,” one said, while another blamed poor maintenance.

The leader of the rail workers union Fectrans claimed that some workers had complained that problems with the tension of the cable that hauls the carriages had made braking difficult.

“Even planes fall out of the sky sometimes. Accidents happen,” said another woman.

Several told the BBC that whatever the cause, they could not imagine using the funicular again.

“I’ve told everyone I’m not going to use it anymore,” said Sonia before heading back into the office, flanked by work friends.

At least 15 people were killed when Lisbon’s Gloria funicular railcar derailed and crashed, emergency services said.

Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa shared his condolences with the families affected by what he described as a tragedy.

The Portuguese government has announced a day of national mourning, while officials in Lisbon have declared three days of mourning in the capital city.

What happened in Lisbon?

At about 6:15pm local time (17:15 GMT), a carriage on Lisbon’s world-famous funicular electric railway derailed and crashed.

Witnesses said they heard a loud noise before one of the trams sped down a steep slope in the city, apparently out of control.

“It hit a building with brutal force and collapsed like a cardboard box; it had no brakes,” a witness told the AFP news agency.

Photos showed the tram carriage toppled on its side along the narrow road it usually travels. The sides and roof of the carriage were partly crumpled by the impact after it appeared to have struck a bend in the road at speed.

Local media reported that emergency crews responded quickly, deploying 62 rescuers and 22 support vehicles to help survivors trapped in the wreckage.

Authorities said it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.

The Lisbon Firefighters Regiment reported that the crash was caused by a “cable that came loose” in the funicular system.

At least 15 people were killed and 18 others injured, five of them critically, according to the National Institute for Medical Emergencies.

What is a funicular railway?

A funicular is a type of cable railway built to carry passengers up and down steep slopes.

It operates with two counterbalanced cars attached to opposite ends of the same cable: as one car ascends, the other descends, and the weight of the descending car helps pull the ascending car, making it highly efficient.

Funiculars are commonly found in hilly cities and tourist destinations where conventional trains or buses would struggle with steep gradients.

The Gloria funicular was opened in Lisbon in 1885 and electrified three decades later. It can carry 43 people, seated and standing. It is commonly used by the capital’s residents.

Where exactly did the crash happen?

The crash took place on a popular tram line in the centre of Lisbon that connects the city’s downtown area near the Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto (Upper Quarter), which is known for its vibrant nightlife.

The funicular derailed and crashed on Rua da Gloria, a well-known street in central Lisbon.

Gloria is one of three funicular lines operated by the municipal public transport company, Carris.

Carris said in a statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out”, with the last one taking place in 2022, and there were daily inspections.

According to a report by Spanish newspaper El Pais, workers had complained on several occasions about “poor maintenance” on the Gloria line.

The Gloria line transports about three million people annually, according to city officials.

O Elevador da Glória descarrilou e tombou esta quarta-feira, junto à Avenida da Liberdade, em Lisboa. Segundo os bombeiros sapadores, o acidente provocou “muitas vítimas”, incluindo feridos graves. pic.twitter.com/ADWpR5c8oe

— Mundo Vivo (@mundo__vivo) September 3, 2025

Translation: The Glory Elevator derailed and overturned this Wednesday, near Avenida da Liberdade, in Lisbon. According to the municipal firefighters, the accident caused “many victims”, including serious injuries.

What do we know about the victims?

Portugal’s Ministry of Health said there were local and foreign surnames among the victims in the crash, but that their nationalities were not yet known.

There were no children among the 15 dead, it added.

In total, 18 people were injured. Of those, nine were taken to hospital, five of them in serious condition. A child was also injured.

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that two of the injured are Spanish citizens, according to Europa Press.

What is the latest on the ground?

According to local reports, all victims were taken to hospitals by 8:30pm local time (19:30 GMT), and by 9pm (20:00 GMT), police and emergency personnel had cleared the crash site, where an investigation into the cause is under way.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the streets around the crash site filled with news media and hundreds of tourists stopping to capture images of the wreckage.

Lisbon’s City Council shut down the city’s other streetcars and called for urgent inspections, local media reported.