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Excalibur investigation expected to take weeks

It could take a month or more for the B.C. Safety Authority to complete its investigation into the Dec. 16 Excalibur accident, which left 12 injured and shut down the lower section of the lift indefinitely until Tower 4 can be repaired.
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Left Hanging Whistler Fire Services rescue gondola riders from a cabin suspended over Fitzsimmons Creek on Dec. 16 while the top of Tower 4 hangs by cables in the background. The incident is still under investigation, but ice inside the tower has been pinpointed as the likely cause of the accident. Photo by Scott Brammer, www.coastphoto.com

It could take a month or more for the B.C. Safety Authority to complete its investigation into the Dec. 16 Excalibur accident, which left 12 injured and shut down the lower section of the lift indefinitely until Tower 4 can be repaired.

Greg Paddon, a safety manager with the B.C. Safety Authority (BCSA), was hesitant to give an estimate until he was further along in the investigation.

“I would say it’s going to take a good part of January just to review all the information we get in from the field, and it’s going to be quite a bit (of information),” he said. “That’s six weeks, but if there is an opportunity for an interim report where we can release some of our findings… then we would release an interim report.”

In the meantime the BCSA has issued an alert to other ski areas to check their towers for water intrusion, advising them to shut down lifts if water is detected, and to take steps to remove it after consulting with the lift manufacturers on the best method.

It’s believed that water seeped into the Excalibur’s Tower 4, froze and expanded and caused the top section of the tower to separate from the bottom half. The process is called “ice jacking,” and is similar to what happens when pipes freeze.

Doppelmayr, the manufacturer of Excalibur, did send out an alert about water intrusion on Dec. 31, 2006 after a tower burst at Silver Mountain Resort in Idaho. The Idaho failure happened while the lift was closed. No one was injured.

Whistler Blackcomb and the BCSA acknowledged receiving the alert.

However, Tower 4 was partially filled with concrete to provide dampening for the lift, making it almost impossible to test for water by tapping the tower. The tower was supposed to be sealed against water and there was no evidence of water intrusion, such as rust marks or ice around the flanges where the top and bottom sections were joined. There’s no word as to where the water came from.

The top section of the Excalibur, which operates separately from the bottom section, was cleared to run by the BCSA on Saturday, restoring upload capacity to normal levels for the busy Christmas season — 12,000 people per hour at five uploading stations on Whistler and Blackcomb.

People using the Tube Park, which is expected to open for Christmas, will be able to access the area by the Magic Chair, while staff at Base II can now ski out to the base of Whistler and Blackcomb, obtain subsidized transit passes, and use the Magic Chair to get up and down the mountain. If needed, Employee Experience director Joel Chevalier says they are ready to use Whistler Blackcomb’s shuttles to move staff around.

“Basically, we’re just waiting for feedback to see if we need some more capacity, in which case we can put our red buses into service for staff,” said Chevalier. “We’re also hoping that we’ll get word from the BCSA that we’ll be able to get the gondola up and running again soon, but we’ll do whatever it takes in the meantime to get people where they’re going.”

The investigation continues

Following the accident the BCSA had three investigators in the field, including two millwrights with experience in the ski industry, and another who has built lifts for Doppelmayr. In addition to looking at Tower 4 they inspected other lift towers for water intrusion, as well as the haul rope, drives, stations, and other Excalibur components to determine if there was any damage in the initial jolt.

Paddon says that they did get the 2006 alert from Doppelmayr, but his organization is not responsible for directly following up on alerts from all the different lift manufacturers.

“What normally happens when we get an alert is we do some follow-up with the ski areas and make sure they received the alert and are aware of what the requirements are,” he said. “We do not do inspections specifically to what a safety alert to a manufacturer would state... Operators must ensure that they are operating and following both (provincial) regulations and the manufacturers’ specifications.”

Paddon has worked in the industry, and says it’s common to look for water. Some towers have holes drilled in them to prevent water from building up, but he says in some cases that can introduce new problems, like rust, by allowing water in.

“I’ve worked on ski lifts in the past and was drilling holes in the towers for signs… and you get a rush of air going into the tower because you just opened a perfectly sealed unit,” he said. “What I’ve done is contaminated it, and created a place where water can conceivably get in, but if you think water is getting in there you have to do something to ensure that it gets out.

“The key there is that the operators need to know what’s inside their tubes. If you have concrete you need to know to what level, or the easiest thing is to fill it to the top. In the case of Tower 4, the tower was not filled to the top, and therefore the void was filled with water to the top.”

Doppelmayr is one of the biggest suppliers of lift systems to ski areas around the world, with almost 14,000 installations in 78 countries. Now, in the wake of the Excalibur Gondola accident, resorts around the world are being advised by the company to check their towers for water by tapping the tower, and, if detected, to shut down the lift and take steps to remove it immediately. Paddon is expecting Doppelmayr, which is aiding the investigation, to release a more detailed information bulletin in the next few days.

It’s been estimated that the flange where Tower 4 failed was subjected to 800 tonnes of pressure from the expanding ice.

On Thursday, Dec. 19 the bottom part of the tower was removed from the site for inspection, and the flange was sent to an independent metallurgical expert in Vancouver.

The BCSA last inspected the Excalibur in October and cleared the lift for operation.

As for reports that the lift was moving slowly before the accident, Paddon says he hasn’t heard any issues around that.

“At the time of the accident the lift was moving three or 3.2 metres a second, and the full speed is five metres per second… but it’s not unusual at that time of day to run a little slower. There were not a lot of people, there were no large lineups, and there is no indication there were any other factors with the drive or braking, in which case the speed of the lift would have been part of what happened here.”

No serious injuries

Twelve people were injured in the accident. Most of the injuries were bumps and bruises but one rider suffered a broken vertebrae when the cabin he was in hit the ground. Another Whistler Blackcomb employee injured his hand during the rescue.

Most injuries occurred when two cabins fell more than 10 metres and struck the ground in a paved area of the Benchlands before rebounding. All of the passengers admitted to the Whistler Health Care Centre were released that night, with Whistler Blackcomb picking up all medical bills. Everyone is expected to make a complete recovery.

According to Chevalier, Whistler Blackcomb is in contact with all of the injured riders and “many have already been back up the mountains. A few of the passengers sustained injuries preventing them from immediately returning to skiing and riding, and we are working with them to ensure that their needs are taken care of and that their recovery is speedy.”

The accident happened at roughly 2:30 p.m., when skiers and boarders were downloading the mountain near the end of the day. Whistler Blackcomb reactivated the top section of the gondola to get those people off quickly, and boarded them onto buses for a ride down to the village.

A total of 53 people were evacuated from the bottom section. Ladders on fire trucks were used to rescue most people, but a few in harder to reach areas were evacuated by ropes and rappel devices. All persons were removed within two and a half hours.

After checking every single tower on the two mountains for similar water buildup that evening, Whistler Blackcomb was given clearance to reopen all lifts, with the exception of the Excalibur, by early Wednesday.

While Whistler Blackcomb has up to 18 lifts that use similar tower technology, there are fewer towers that contain any concrete. Four of them were on the Excalibur, including the failed Tower 4.

While Whistler Blackcomb is insured for the lift — with a heavy deductible, according to senior VP of operations Doug Forseth — the immediate concern now is providing access through the busy holidays.

Forseth acknowledged that Whistler Blackcomb would need to “work hard” to restore public confidence in its lift systems and the safety of the industry in general.