Company cleared over alpine cable car tunnel fire which killed 155

A JUDGE yesterday cleared of criminal negligence 16 people accused over an alpine cable car fire that killed 155 people.

Judge Manfred Seiss ruled in Salzburg that there was insufficient evidence to find that the 16 accused including cable car company officials, technicians and government inspectors were responsible for conditions that allowed a faulty heater to cause the blaze on November 11, 2000.

All 16 had pleaded not guilty to negligence charges. If convicted, they would have faced up to five years in prison.

Among the dead in the disaster was British ski instructor Kevin Challis, from Dorset. He had given up his spot to an old man on the previous cable car, which his eight-year-old daughter Siobhan was on.

She waited for her father at the top when smoke began billowing from the tunnel mouth.

Most of the victims were skiers and snowboarders from Austria and Germany. Eight were Americans, including a family of four and a newly-engaged couple. Others were from Japan, Slovenia, Holland and the Czech Republic. The youngest victim was a six-year-old boy.

Only 12 people escaped the cable car as it turned into a fireball inside a tunnel on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier near the Kaprun resort, 60 miles south of Salzburg. Many of the victims were only identified weeks later after DNA analysis.

The prosecution alleged that officials from the cable car company, the heater manufacturers and installers and government officials who carried out safety inspections were responsible for allowing the fire to happen by neglecting to check into what a simple fault could do.

Investigators say the blaze most likely started when a production-related defect in a heater caused a heating element to loosen, causing brake oil in pipes to over heat, drip on to the plastic- coated floor and catch fire.

Rubber and wood used in the carriage's construction helped the blaze to spread.

The heater should never have been installed and should not have been so close to the hydraulic pipes, prosecutors said.

Lawyers representing the operating company said all safety regulations were enforced. They contended the company could not be held responsible for safety defects that became apparent after the investigation.

"The law also has to protect those who are innocent," Seiss said, explaining his ruling. "In this case, we had to discover how far the defendants were personally responsible for what happened. We decided they weren't responsible.

"This court has done everything possible to uncover the truth," he said.

"This is unbelievable it simply can't be true," a relative of one of the victims said as he left the courthouse in disgust.

Before the verdicts were announced, another relative of one of the victims staged a protest at the court, carrying a banner of the names of all 155 victims and the words: "Who will take responsibility for 155 lives?"

During the trial, which lasted more than 18 months, the judge heard how the blaze spread in minutes.

Investigators had testified that the driver was unable to open the doors as the fire spread. When he did open the doors, many of those who tried to escape upward through the tunnel were killed by toxic fumes from the blazing car, they said.

Thomas Kraus, 32, told the court last year how he smashed a rear window of the carriage and threw himself into the tunnel.

"I pressed myself against the wall of the tunnel and felt the pressure of two explosions," Kraus testified.

Relatives denounced the verdicts as a gross miscarriage of justice.

"I'm absolutely speechless. This is a slap in the face to all the relatives of the dead," said Austrian Brigitte Hochhalter, who lost her only son, Daniel.

"I can't believe no one can be found responsible for 155 deaths," she said, weeping. "We've been in pain for months now, and that pain will continue."

Separate civil trials are underway in New York and in Germany, where lawyers for US and German victims are seeking billions in compensation.