Prosecutors probe deadly cable car accident

German prosecutors today said they had opened their own criminal investigation into a cable car accident in the Austrian Alps that killed nine German skiers.

The investigation into negligent homicide and causing actual bodily harm was focused on the operators of a helicopter which dropped a 700-kilogram container onto a cable car, said Ruediger Hoedl, a senior prosecutor in Munich.

Three adults from the southern German state of Bavaria and six children aged between 12 and 14 from neighbouring Baden-Wuerttemberg died in the incident on Monday near the Austrian resort of Soelden.

Hoedl said German prosecutors were co-operating closely with their counterparts in the Austrian city of Innsbruck, who were leading the investigation.

Human error and mechanical troubles were being considered as potential causes of the accident.

Investigators are focusing on why a mechanical hook beneath the helicopter let go of the tub, which was used to transport concrete, as it passed over the cable car.

One car plunged 30 metres onto a rocky mountainside near the glacier where the Germans had been skiing. Other people were catapulted from two neighbouring cars. Seven people survived their injuries.

German officials said the bodies of two girls and one youth had been returned to Germany.