Mother dies in cable car horror after getting snagged while loading luggage, clinging on while dragged 50 yards out over Italian valley then falling 500ft to her death in front of her husband and two children
- Margherita Lega, 41, had been hiking with her family on holiday in the Italian Alps
A mother has plunged 500ft to her death from a cable car in Italy after she was dragged away by the mountain lift system in front of her horrified family.
The woman, named as Margherita Lega, had been hiking with her husband and two young children during a holiday in the Italian Alps when the freak tragedy happened at around 11am today.
The 41-year-old had been loading luggage onto the teleferica machine - a small cable car used to transport baggage and objects rather than people - when her clothes were snagged by the contraption and it suddenly switched on.
She clung on as it carried her more than 50 yards over a cliff edge, before she was no longer able to hold her weight and let go, plunging to her death, La Repubblica reports.
Ms Lega's children, who are believed to have witnessed their mother's harrowing death, are being looked after while her husband has been taken to the local police station following the horrific incident, which is now being investigated.
Carabinieri attending the scene of the freak tragedy in the Italian Alps
A helicopter was used by search and rescue teams to locate and recover the woman's body
Emergency vehicles are seen in the forest where the Italian tourist fell to her death
The family had reportedly been trying to reach a cabin on the mountain in the Calasca Castiglione area when Ms Lega plummeted into the deep gulley.
The mayor of Calasca Castiglione, Silvia Tipaldi, said she was 'shocked' by the tragic death and shared her condolences with the family.
'We are shocked,' she said, adding: 'We are waiting for the magistrate's checks on the plant to have more information on what unfortunately turned out to be a tragedy'.
Mayor Tipaldi said that 'the cableway paperwork was regularly filed with the Municipality' and that the authorities currently believe 'the tragedy was accidental.'
She added that 'the family is in shock' and that the municipality is on hand to support them.
The hamlet of Drocala, which they had been trying to reach, only has a few private homes, with authorities saying they do not know if the victim's family had friends or relatives in the area or whether they were visiting someone there.
The cableway, which connects the Olino hamlet with the Drocala alpine pasture, is said to travel a distance of around 1,300ft (400m) and crosses a steep ravine.
It is usually operated by two people, at two points, above and below. The starting point cannot be seen from where the controls are at the top, according to reports.
More than 100 emergency personnel including firefighters, police and mountain rescue teams rushed to the scene.
With the help of a helicopter and climbers on the ground, they eventually located the Ms Lega's body in the valley.
The woman, named as Margherita Lega, had been hiking near Calasca Castiglione (pictured) when the incident happened at around 11am this morning
Stock image shows a cable car. The one involved in the incident is designed to carry luggage rather than people
Alpine rescue crewmembers recovered her body by winching themselves down from the helicopter and pulling the mother out of the ravine by air.
Prosecutors reportedly sealed off the teleferica as they look into whether all the correct safety measures were observed at the site.
The system is reported to have restarted suddenly, with the reason as to why it began pulling uphill being investigated.
The incident took place in the Anzasca Valley, a popular hiking area in the Piedmont northeast of Turin.
Ms Lega is said to have been from Fiavè, a small town in Italy's northeastern Trento region, a four hour drive from Calasca Castiglione.
Italy has been rocked by cable car tragedies in the past, with 14 people killed when a wire snapped and flung a carriage 65ft to the ground in 2021.
A cable car carrying 15 passengers plunged to the ground in northern Italy in 2021, killing 14
The cable car had been carrying the passengers up a mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore in the western Alps when it dropped 1,000ft away from the station.
Disturbing footage of the disaster shows how close the passengers were to safety before the cabin shot down the mountain.
It shows a cable snapping, sending the car and its passengers inside careening back down as they were brutally thrown around the cabin.
In separate video, the carriage can be seen flying off and falling out of view behind the crest of a hill where it crashed, killing 14 of the 15 people onboard.
In another gondola disaster, 20 people were killed in the Dolomites when a US airforce pilot crashed into the cables holding a carriage full of holidaymakers.
The 1998 tragedy in Cavalese came 22 years after another in the same town, which saw 43 people killed when their cabin skidded 300 feet and was crushed.
