Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Cable Car Stalled Due To Lighting ( Bad Weather )

Twenty cable car passengers were trapped in their cabins for 15 minutes yesterday, after lightning triggered sensors that brought their cable cars to a sudden halt.
Nobody was hurt in the incident but it was the first time in 36 years that the cable car system in Singapore, which stretches between Mount Faber and Sentosa, has come to a halt due to lightning.
Cable car operators Mount Faber Leisure Group said that at 12.45pm, due to “strong winds and bad weather conditions”, the cable car’s safety system automatically stopped the cars as a precaution after it detected the “weather irregularities”.
While technicians inspected the cable lines, the twenty passengers were left perspiring 100-metres above the ground for 15 minutes.
However, a backup system was in place to help bring the passengers back to the cable car stations at Mount Faber, Sentosa and Habourfront.
The last passenger alighted at 1.45pm, approximately one hour after the cable cars stopped moving. The journey between Mount Faber and Sentosa is about 1.75km, which takes about 13 minutes.
More tests were carried out after all the passengers alighted, and the system was up and running again in an hour.
Aviation surveyor John Leonard, 42, was with his three-year-old daughter when the lights and LCD display inside the cabin blacked out and the cabin came to a stop.
“There was a bolt of lightning very close to our car, and then the car suddenly stopped,” the Singapore-based Briton told ST.
He also added that his first concern, when the incident happened, was for his daughter.
“I was okay, but I thought if I were stuck up here for a long time with a three-year-old, what would I do?”
He was also reminded about the time when the Singapore Flyer stalled in December 2008, where 10 passengers had to be lowered via safety harnesses, and was worried that they too might have to “climb down” from the cars.
Mr Leonard also revealed that the cable car had stopped briefly twice earlier in the journey, but the lights were still functioning and the LCD display told passengers to “stay calm and enjoy the view”.
“But it was quite stormy and misty, so we couldn’t see anything out of the window,” he added.
He insisted that more could have been done to reassure the stranded passengers.
Mount Faber Leisure Group said that the stranded passengers can get refunds for their cable car ride.
The cable car system recently re-opened in July after a 10-month makeover. The lightning protection device that detected weather irregularities and stopped the system yesterday is part of the new advanced safety features, said a spokesman.
In a previous cable car accident in 1983, the tower of a Panamanian-registered oil rig that was being towed from Keppel Wharf struck the cable lines of the system, causing two cabins to plunge 55-metres into the sea, killing seven. Thirteen other people were also trapped in four cabins between Mount Faber and Sentosa, and were rescued after three-and-a-half hours. Read more at http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/11/15/cable-car-stalls-due-to-bad-weather/

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