Italian police have arrested three people in connection with the Stresa-Mottarone cable car crash on Sunday, whose 14 victims included nearly an entire Israeli family.
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Overnight Tuesday, site manager Luigi Nerini, business manager Enrico Perocchio, and chief engineer Gabriele Tadini were taken into custody after investigators determined that the cable car's brake system was faulty.
District prosecutor Olimpia Bossi said that the three had known about the technical problem prior to the crash, alleging that they had been aware that the car was operating without brakes since April 26.
On Tuesday, five-year-old Eitan Biran, who was critically injured in the accident that killed his parents, brother, and great-grandparents, began to emerge from a medically induced coma.
Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into suspected involuntary manslaughter and negligence.
"We are starting from the empirical evidence. The cable sheared and the system of safety brakes clearly did not work," Bossi said Monday.
Initial reports said the cable that was pulling the cabin up the slope snapped as the gondola neared the end of its 20-minute journey to the top of the Mottarone mountain.
The braking mechanism on a second wire that was bearing the weight of the cabin failed to engage and the gondola slid backwards before apparently hitting a pylon and tumbling to earth, where it rolled over before hitting trees.
On Tuesday, five-year-old Eitan Biran, who was critically injured in the accident that killed his parents, brother, and great-grandparents, began to emerge from a medically induced coma.
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