Plane Crashes Into Ski Lift Cable, Pilot And Passenger Evade Death

A pilot and a passenger narrowly escaped death after they were left dangling upside down trapped inside their aircraft which crashed into a ski lift cable in Italian Alps on Oct. 6, Sunday.

The incident took place in Prato Valentino ski resort at Teglio, north of Milan, in the Italian Alps.

The overhead cables in the resort of Lombardy, Italy, seized the light aircraft and left it upturned. It took around 90 minutes for rescuers to bring down the pair from the jeopardized aircraft, The Sun reported.

According to a rescuer, it was nothing short of a miracle that they came out unhurt.

The pilot, 62, didn’t suffer serious injuries and he was shifted to a hospital in Sondalo. The 55-year-tourist from Varese, who was aboard the aircraft, escaped unharmed too, Mail Online reported.

Dramatic images released by the rescue teams show the pilot sitting on the wing as a rescuer meticulously advances towards him along the cable.

Mountain rescue teams, the firefighters, and the police joined hands to carry out the complex rescue operation. They could successfully remove both the men from the aircraft after two hours of effort.

“They were both very lucky really. If the plane had crashed into the ground the ending could have been very different. It was a complicated rescue operation involving many services but ultimately it was successful which was the main thing. Neither of the men were in injured but they were very shocked,'' said Walter Milan, a spokesman for the Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico, the national cave and mountain rescue unit.

“It was a miraculous escape. The plane crashed into the cables but fortunately it became stuck rather than crashing to the ground,” Milan further emphasized.

Officials stated the plane had taken off from a nearby airfield for a sightseeing tour. It then lost power and crashed midway.

There are speculations about probable reasons, both human and mechanical, for the crash.