The moment skiers are violently thrown from out-of-control chairlift
Terrified tourists have been violently flung from a malfunctioning ski-lift that left 10 people with minor injuries.
Dozens of skiers and snowboarders were descending on the lift at the Gudauri resort on the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range in Georgia when it suddenly began speeding up, eventually running at twice its normal speed.
Horrifying footage shows the out-of-control lift flinging skiers from their seats into the air. A skier can be seen lying motionless on the floor next to a detached chair.
As another chair hurtles around the bend it becomes jammed, leading to a tangled pile up.
Shocked onlookers scream to approaching skiers to jump from the chairlift before they crash into the muddle of twisted metal frames.
One woman unable to jump from her chair is sent plummeting into the pile up, with her body flung at speed in several directions before falling out.
“The lift stopped for a minute. There is a language barrier with the Georgians, so we didn’t know what was happening," witness Ryan Wilkinson told The Guardian.
"Then it started reversing backwards slowly, then it got quicker. There was a guy in the office smashing on a machine and shouting who seemed powerless to stop it."
Davit Sergeenko, Georgia's health minister, said the affected tourists, who were mostly Swedish and Ukrainian, only suffered minor injuries.
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One of the injured was a pregnant Swedish woman who has complained of pain in her waist.
A spokesperson for Doppelmayr, the Austrian manufacturer of the chairlift, said two technicians were in transit to Georgia to respond to the incident.
The spokesperson said the cause for the malfunction was not yet known.
An investigation under Article 275 of Georgia’s Criminal Code which deals with safety violations and the operation of railway, water, air or cable traffic movement has begun.
