- Margherita Lega, 41, had been hiking with her family 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 family 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 she became snagged on 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 she let go, plunging to her death, La Repubblica reports.
Ms Lega’s two 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.
A helicopter was used by search and rescue teams to locate and recover the woman’s body
The woman, named as Margherita Lega, had been hiking near Calasca Castiglione (pictured) when the incident happened at around 11am this morning
The cable car is said to cover a distance of almost 400 meters and crossing a steep ravine.
The cableway is usually operated by two people, at the two points, above and below. It is reported that from above, where the controls are, the starting point cannot be seen.
The family had reportedly been trying to reach a cabin on the mountain in the Calasca Castiglione area when the woman plummeted into the gulley.
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 woman’s body in the valley.
Alpine rescue crewmembers recovered her body by winching themselves down from the helicopter and pulling the woman 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.
Stock image shows a cable car. The one involved in the incident is designed to carry luggage rather than people
The system is reported to have restarted suddenly, with the reason as to why being investigated.
The harrowing 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.