On Wednesday, September 3 at 6 PM in Lisbon, one of the two cars of the Elevador da Glória (with a capa-city of up to 43 people) derailed and crashed into a building on Rua da Glória, causing the death of 16 people (including the operator) and injuring around 20 passengers.
The Elevador da Glória, classified as a national monument in 2002, connects Praça dos Restauradores to Bairro Alto and is one of Lisbon’s main tourist attractions, carrying more than three million passengers each year. It operates on a 265-meter route with a 45-meter elevation gain. Designed by Portuguese engineer Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, it was inaugurated on October 24, 1885. Initially powered by a water counterweight system, it was later converted to steam traction and finally electrified in 1915. The system underwent a general overhaul in 2022 and a partial overhaul in 2024.
The Portuguese Office for Investigation of Aircraft and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF) stated that the accident occurred due to the detachment of the (underground) hauling cable from the car that later crashed.
“The scheduled visual inspection, carried out on the morning of the accident, did not detect any anomaly in the cable.” However, it was not possible to visually inspect the condition of the cable section at the point where it detached from the vehicle before the accident, the report adds. It appears that the brakeman activated both the pneumatic and manual brakes but was unable to stop the movement or reduce the speed of the descending car, which crashed at a speed of 50–60 km/h.
The cable failed after 337 days, well before the expected 600-day replacement threshold.
