RED LODGE - Caught in swirling, powerful winds, a cable rope on the chairlift separated from the sheaves at the top of the tower, causing the rope and chair to drop and leading to the death of Billings snowboarder at Red Lodge Mountain last week, according to officials at the mountain.
Mountain officials released new details Tuesday about the March 10 accident that killed 37-year-old Jeff Zinne, which was initially classified as an "unusually aggressive derailment" caused by erratic winds.
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The chair did not detach from the cable or hit the ground, according to the mountain, but ski experts noted that such an equipment failure can be calamitous.
The chair "wouldn't necessarily hit the ground, but the yo-yo effect of that... You're between two distant towers, with all that slack. That must have been a horrible situation," Parker Real, former president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, the only state in the country that requires safety bars on all chair lifts, told MTN News.
While it's unclear if a safety bar would have prevented Zinne from falling, Real says it certainly could have helped.
The Triple Chair lift, where the accident occurred, remains closed indefinitely as the mountain continues to investigate.
