The motorized ski tow eliminated laborious uphill hikes and thereby revolutionized downhill skiing. Early tows amounted to a rope threaded around a pair of pulleys and driven by a dismounted automobile engine and transmission. Modern tows span miles and operate at great heights….
The case at hand involved a chairlift in New Hampshire. A fractured housing caused the chair to separate from the cable and fall to the terrain far below. The two teenage male passengers were seriously injured and their parents sued the ski area. I was retained by the ski area in my usual role of metallurgist….
The plaintiff expert saw my report and changed his tune. He dropped the over-tightening claim and concluded the failure was due to sympathetic oscillations set up in the cable instigated solely by the
powering of the lift. These oscillations caused the chair to strike a tower and fracture the housing. He stated without proof the boys could not possibly have caused the swinging.Anyone who has ever used a playground swing knows better. During the case the Boston Globe reported a Lake Tahoe accident in which teenagers “swinging the chairs” dumped people from 40 ft and injured 17 of them. But, this was a plaintiff expert so his clients had to be guiltless…. The plaintiffs lost their case against the ski area.
So writes Ken Russell, MIT professor emeritus of Metallurgy and Nuclear Engineering, in “The Case of the Strewn Skiers“