The Kaprun Alpine Railway Disaster 2000
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2022
- The in-depth story of the Kaprun funicular railway fire disaster.
It’s November 11, 2000, and winter sports are in full swing at the picturesque Alpine village of Kaprun. The 9am funicular train is carrying 161 passengers up the steep track to the slopes of the Kitzsteinhorn Mountain. After just a few hundred yards, the train disappears into the tunnel leading up to the summit station. It’s a trip that shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes. But the train car doesn’t arrive. Instead, the power goes out, and the connection with the conductor is lost. Now, there is no way to find out what’s happening in the tunnel.
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No fire alarm, no intercom, no cell service, no way to open the doors, where was the rear conductor's fire extinguisher?
The lack of any safety standards constitutes a criminal level of negligence in this case. Just awful.
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles Mobile service from the outside does not work indeed. Repeaters would have done the trick.
The conductors' cabin was AFAIK locked - like all other doors. Level of negligence was indeed on a criminal level.
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles Still possible to have a comms system between the passenger cabin and the conductor cabin - failing that why not have an alarm between the two cabins?
@Yummy Spaghetti Noodles I don't think anyone's basing their replies off of our current technology but to have no communication, whatsoever, on a major piece of equipment is irresponsible.
Welcome to Austria
Not having a way to talk to the conductor from other parts of the train or at least an emergency button somewhere is in my opinion the most unbelievably terrible thing about this, along with him having no training about what to do in an emergency like a fire to know not to lead passengers upward. Conductors not even being given the basic training given to flight attendants in airplanes but for the limited amount of things that can go wrong on a train is just pathetic...
Also, I don‘t know why a 3km tunnel doesn‘t have cables for cell service inside.
@ cus it was the year 2000, while cellphones weren't rare they weren't commonplace either. That's the least of the issues I see here.
It should be common sense to not climb upward in a fire because everyone knows smoke rises?
@@youngeshmoney Plenty of safety protocols should be common sense sometimes, but common sense is more uncommon than it should be and what to do in an emergency isn't something that should always be left to it. When people are in an emergency situation and panicking, it's harder to think. Having a plan ahead of time isn't working on the assumption that people are dumb. It's turning life saving measures into a matter of training instead of thinking under pressure---much easier. Much safer.
@@youngeshmoney One of basic rules of emergency escape design is you do not rely on "common sense". That is why you see green lights with "emergency escape" markings even in perfectly clear areas. And that is why emergency brakes in trains are big red handles. Because in danger, you need untrained people to "see and go".
I rode this train with my parents during our ski vacations in the 90s. I was in my early teenage years at that time, and I remember I always had this feeling of trepidation when I boarded the train. I literally stood there like a statue for the entire ride and felt a great sense of relief every time we got off. Even more than 22 years after that disaster, I still get goose bumps when I write about it.
R.I.P. to all the victims.
Today I saw a train like this for first time and before knowing what caused disaster I felt discomfort especially when I saw how steep is going and then even into long tunnel with fact that is carying 180 people, so scary
I've been on similar trains and for me it's mostly the incline that's scary. I don't know if it has ever happened, but in my mind it's possible the cable snaps and we all take the quick way down.
Yeah I rode it in 1994
Rode this in 1998😮
@@grumblur I wonder has there ever been a cable breaking incident with one of these trains? It has to be a horrifying scenario even with hydraulic brake systems.
I was working for an insurance company in 2001. And I still remember the photocopies I had to make one day. It was a drawing of the tunnel of Kaprun, and there were the names of all the bodies. You could see how one half of a married couple had still crawled a few meters more than his or her partner before passing away. I don't remember any of the names, but I will never forget making those creepy photocopies. 🙁
Yoo thats so sad 😢😢😢
Damn...
I understand this soo perfectly after my wife recently got a job at Travelers Insurance she has to do similar things all the time.
I have had to do some translations regarding some terrible crimes and it really stays with you. I’m moved to tears right now thinking about this young guy who was murdered in northern Mexico or southern Texas I’m not sure, and photos of his uncles in their cowboy hats and jeans putting his casket on the back of a pickup truck. I really felt for them and their loss of their young nephew.
This is one that haunts me to this day because of how gruesome and yet preventable it was...
what haunts me is the greasy political slimy move in court. this is literally my worst nightmare
Yep, it's an epitome of a disaster which happened because no-one bothered to look into adjusting the safety standards due to "Nothing has ever happened so far so why should we?" Even when the originally very simple unpowered train cars begun to have electrification, hydraulics, etc. and these additions weren't clearly always done with any real oversight.
I'm always appalled when preventable tragedy, involving modern/modernized architecture in USofA or European Nations.
When a bridge back East collapsed, think back in 03' a Chinese engineer said, this happens in China. It shouldn't happen in America.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 it can happen anywhere there is complacency, doesn't matter what country. We are no better than China, just because we have "standards" doesn't mean tragedies won't happen.
yea, "bUt GoD DiD iT" 🙄🙄🙄 sure, fath-... err, judge seiss, sure thing really.
Imagine being the guy who installed the emergency door years earlier (that was completely unrelated to the fire) and being hauled in to court to answer the indictment. You're just a guy doing your job, and you did it right, and it was the dead employees in the control room who didn't close it who were responsible for that part of the disaster. I would have been too p'd off to actually defend myself.
It's outrageous, and that's just one example of totally unrelated people getting pinned. Meanwhile, the lackluster designers and the people who authorized it for use weren't even considered. It's spelled "pissed" though, stop catering to itty bitty babies who'll dictate you for no valid reason.
@@TheMrTape Maybe they wanted to use "p'd off". Why should they cater to you? Why do you care so much? You must live a very easy life to get so triggered over nothing.
@@TheMrTape Dude, are you a boomer? People don’t censor like that to be woke, it’s to stop the algorithm from downticking their comment. 😅
@@baum7275 You use too much TikTok. That's not how the comments section on TH-cam works. You're like one step above people who think archive sites have algorithms.
@@jayp.7197 Hm, I mean youtube heavily uses algorithms so why would they not be analyzing the comments section as well? Either way though people don’t self censor or say “unalive” to be woke, and it’s very boomer to think everybody’s just being woke
I am shocked that I have never heard of this disaster before, I am German and it would have been widely covered in the news. I was only a kid back then, but at some point I would have expected to come across this, especially as investigations went on for so long. The lack of any safety standards is incredible, but even more infuriating is the outcome of the trial. And this is fairly recent, which just confirms my belief over and over again that we do not learn from the past, and always neglect safety, how basic it may be.
There was a huge media coverage back then. Das war eine große Sache damals in den Medien.
Lessons learnt, lesson's never learnt.
Yeah, I completely agree. Technically it shouldn't be a big suprise that we in the middle of Europe also have the same level of corruption that most other countries have but it still is always a little bit shocking to me when it is revealed.
They tried to hide their mistake and potential corruption.
strange how wikipedia has no mention of hydraulic oil being inside the heater, it only has the "heating element jams against plastic casing" theory
Maybe the person/people who wrote the wiki article only got their information from the first trial and didn't really look at the second one. Or they simply based their statements on official court rulings, according to which it was indeed the heating element, despite this being proven as tampered evidence.
It utterly disgusts me that the ones responsible weaseled themselves out of any legal punishment. If you screw up, you own up. Those people haven't got a shred of honour in their entire body.
Welcome to modern day large companies, and an entire source of revenue for a country being "Threatened" by some idiots gigantic cockup.
They got the lead forensic/technical investigator removed by attacking him, saying he was clinically depressed. Damn.
Anyone would be become messed up in such a distrustful, blame shifting environment.
What you can be an expert even with depression, they clearly managed to stop him from investigating.
money can fix pretty much anything, just pay up and you'll be redeemed and no harm done (i mean those casualties are exactly that - casualties, so why bother lol), praise the mone- i mean lord, AMEN.
That is seriously fucked up money talks they say
The utter absence of safety features is astounding. Criminally negligent.
It's like it's designed to maximize the chance of death. It's not a train, its a tomb.
it was different times back then stop being such a wuss yall. Error and progress is a thing in all of human history
@@tobbcittobbcit8899 this happened in 2000, not the 14th century.
Sadly, Austria has a persistent proclivity for making safety a secondary priority to the profits of the ski tourism industry. It was the same in when they covered up the first outbreaks of covid in their ski resorts in early 2020
@@troelshansen6212 And don't forget the Air&Style mass panic incident in 1999. We have a very dark record.
how awful, it's been more than 20 years and the families are still waiting for justice to be done.
I’m glad someone has finally made a video about this. I have gone skiing there every year for 6 years and it still saddens me to see the entrance to the tunnel way off in the distance as well as the leftover area of the station at the base.
That entrance looks, to me, a bit of a nightmare in a graphic way it's scary ...
When I heard most of the people went up my heart dropped, this applies to mountains too, fire always burns hot and fast uphill, hence why you should always flee sideways or down.
RIP to all those who died in this terrible accident
I can't speak for Switzerland but here in Canada we learn basic fire safety at a young age. Smoke and heat rises, stay low. Don't get me wrong, I am not faulting the victims at all, I'm sure they were panicked and I have no idea how I would react in that situation.
@@rustblade5021. It was in Austria btw.
Have you ever heard of the original design of the new Berlin airport?
People run away from fire not toward fire.
Also many tunnels have emergency exits and more chances to survive have those who are closer to exits than those who think they know which direction they should go.
I think they were thinking the train was going to come loose and roll downhill, I doubt they knew how the brakes worked
I can't believe that the windows were unbreakable - this is pretty basic stuff - there has to be a method of escape.
I also can't believe that there was no working mechanism to open the doors - they should have been designed to open automatically when the hydraulic system failed.
The fact that there was no built in redundancy in the hydraulic system is incredible - surely a secondary back up system should have been installed.
The lack of communications between the passenger cabin and the conductor cabin is also a major oversight.
This disaster was so preventable.
It kind of makes sense to have unbreakable windows, so that they don't get easily destroyed when people bump into them with skipoles or skies. Acrylic is way more resistant in that way than glas.
I agree with you that there needs to be a way of escape. In most trains today the windows itself are unbreakable, but they sit inside a kind of big rubber seal-like frame. There is a tab on the frame where you pull, thus removing the rubber seal aroudn the window. Then you have the window and the seal which you can drop outside. This combination provides a way of escape and also features windows that don't get damaged in everyday use. But they were not inlcuded on that train.
@@Patricia-kl8yw Ironic how the safety mechanisms worsened the incident
@@Patricia-kl8yw Pretty much all trains in Germany have "unbreakable" windows with one marked break point in case you need to break the window in an emergency. Not sure why they didn't use such a system. The chance that someone hits the exact point with the force required is negligible and the benefit is no people burning alive.
They should use openable window like Japanese train. You don't need to break the window, just slide the window down and get out.
You can have unbreakable glass but there should be a mechanism that allows the whole window to fall out, an emergency release.
God bless all the rescue workers running into danger rather than trying to escape it… such bravery is so under-appreciated.
This is one of the most significant cases of engineering disasters and negligence that I always think back to when I hear about similar engineering mistakes. So many lives lost for no good reason.
Similar to ANY government system, "nobody" is held accountable!!
As a firefighter, he would have been familar with jargon pertinent to fire. However he spoke in way that his fellow passengers, who were presumably non fighters could understand.
That is a good example of how to charge of an unexpected situation and you are familiar with what's going on.
it would of been even simpler to say "smoke goes up, come down"
It's evident that all the people outside the train are imbeciles. It's very elementary knowledge that heat/fire/smoke goes up. The fact that it took a firefighter for anyone to realize that is a fucking joke. Natural selection. Just cut your pretentious bullshit; if they needed to be told this, another good example of what to say would be "Who wants to go with daddy down to get ice cream? Who's a big boy and girl?!". I personally don't give a fuck whether someone's alive or dead if they can't bother to learn the most basic shit about the very existence they live within, totally useless, in fact one doesn't deserve to live if they refuse to learn.
He’s a fire fighter, first responders have to be super heroes to every day people all the time. I’m constantly in awe of the helpers!
Everyone was panicked and probably couldn’t here him. They just went in the direction away from the train without thinking. The firefighter probably couldn’t have done more
How do people not know fire/smoke goes up? Only if they were very close to the top would going upwards make sense.
This disaster, along with the Mont Blanc tunnel fire, is exactly what I cite every time a person mentions Elon Musk's Hyperloop in Vegas. That monstrosity is even more deadly with each vehicle containing a highly flammable lithium ion battery and a tunnel so narrow that the car doors don't seem they'd open all the way. How a person praised for their intelligence can design such a historical death trap is beyond me...
Side note: "fakir" translates to poor/cheap in Turkish. Morbidly poetic.
"Side note" is much better than "Fun fact."
I appreciate your wording...
Side note 2: A Fakir is an artist blowing fire out of his mouth and such.
Side note 3: The german report concluded that the manufacturer of the heater was out of responsibility, hence the heater was disassembled for installation and reassembled inbetween a wooden wall with no dome over the coil and such. No blame to Fakir on my behalf.
Because 1.)It's fun, why do people skydive or rock climb? Don't they know that's dangerous? 2.)The passengers are made to sign a waiver for that
The Hyperloop is a ridiculous "bar napkin" idea (stupid idea drawn on a bar napkin when drunk). It's been debunked by engineers.
Elon Musk is a joke and doesn't care about you
While I was stationed in Vilseck Germany during that time, I also played for a local German soccer team. One of the lads on the team had sent his mum and dad on their anniversary there. Unfortunately they were two of the ones that did not make it back. It was sad to hear and see! They were big fans of the professional soccer team 1860 Munich, once that team heard about it, they then came and played a charity match with our local team. It was very touching and a mark of respect from them.
Yeah, 1860 München is also my favorite team from bavaria (where I was born and grew up). They're way better than FC Bayern because they're much more human and natural, not just some celebrity superstar bs.
Each of these short documentaries feels like it should be a feature film
A classmate back then was a snowboard athlete and were luckily delayed to get on that train. He developed PTSD and took his life couple of years later after this incident out of guiilt. We lost some friends back there.
How he could possibly develop false guilt over that puzzles me a lot; complete 180 from his fault. It's amazing how entirely delusional we can become when depressed.
@@TheMrTape survivor's guilt. If he was supposed to be on that train, but got delayed he would def have survivors guilt
@@TheMrTape it’s called survivors guilt. I was supposed to be on a train a long time ago and I got stuck in traffic and missed the train. And that train overturned and killed a lot of people
@@TheMrTape yeah, survivors guilt is a bitch. worse than depression, for me at least. it doesn’t matter if you have any fault in the issue- its a “should’ve been me” situation. i would know. i had cancer, a very very rare kind. met a woman who had a special needs daughter with an almost identical presentation of my cancer. i was young, so i went to a children’s hospital and got good care- that was a few years ago now. they saved my life several times over. the woman wasn’t as lucky- she had a “childhood” cancer and went to a normal hospital. they didn’t give her proper treatment according to her presentation of the cancer, and she died. when i found out i lost my mind, i was screaming about how that hospital killed my friend, and now her daughter doesn’t have a mother anymore. and all i could think was “it should’ve been me”.. because i was meant to go to the same place, but the day my mim was told to send me to a nephrologist asap, the nephrologist from the hospital over there wasn’t available.
hopefully my rambling of my own example makes at least some sense.
(if you’re curious: it was Stage 4 Ewing Sarcoma, presented in the kidney. I ended up without my right kidney, it was un-salvageable so they took it and the tumor both. if they didn’t do that right away id probably truly be gone. the other hospital never did do the woman’s surgery she was supposed to get. she could be alive today if they did.)
Omg that is so deeply sad!! Sorry for youre big loss🕯️🕯️
Those poor folks who walked up the hill. My house caught on fire back in 2015 and I was about 30 seconds from my house when I got the fire alarm call. I ran in, grabbed my dogs, took them out and put them in my truck, then I went back in and tried to go upstairs. While downstairs was pretty smoky but I could still see, as soon as I took a couple steps up the staircase I could only see blackness. I gave up and left at that point. House was alright. Smoke can get crazy.
Omg I'm glad you got your dogs!
@@d3l3tes00n Yes, they were certainly first. One was just a puppy and I had just put her to bed. After that I tried for my guitars but they were upstairs so that's when I quit.
I'll take your word as the smoking man ^^
@@cigarettesmokingman9471 uhh? I'm not even being 'smart' right now or anything, but it literally would seem like you have ASD, or more likely an intellectual disability, potential brain damage or like trauma? Idk but your response wasn't normal.
Cool, X-Files. Never seen it to be honest. To be clear, you understand my comment was a joke right? Your comment was informative regarding smoke, and your username is Cigarette Smoking Man. I just thought "oh, haha smoking man what a coincidence"- *comment*.
Anyway best of luck mate and enjoy the rest of your day/night ✌️
@@cigarettesmokingman9471 don't take offence to any of that, only typed the first bit in case that might actually help you. it's clear to me that your interpretation of my comment and subsequently your reply was legitimately not normal
Oh god as soon as you said they started going upwards after escaping the train I knew what was coming. I can’t imagine how horrible. In such a state of panic and fear one may not think of that very important detail. It’s easy to think of it safely in bed looking at a screen. I imagine the fear of the train derailing and flying towards you would make one want to go up. What a horrendous disaster. Those poor people. Edit: that’s exactly what you just said too after I posted this. The fear of the train derailing. What an awful decision to have to make.
I find that any 2000’s disasters or incidents are disturbing some times because when you see the videos the quality being so crappy makes everything 10x more creepy
Many teenagers from my village died in that disaster. I was too young to remember, but I know a lot of their families. Some parents and siblings never really recovered from that tragedy…
I was in Kaprun last week and visited the memorial building. It was beautifully done, but what moved me was the dates of birth on each of the individual's windows. I was 19 when this happened, and so many were around my age. So many photos of people who should now be in their 40's, perhaps with husbands, wives and children. I appreciated being able to find out a bit more about them though - the news only ever says "155 dead" without going much into who they were.
that firefighter on board saved lives that day, he had knowledge that majority of the passengers did not have about fire. never heard of this disaster until today
that's like how only electricians know that electricity can shock you
@@TheMrTape ofcourse everyone knows that smoke and heat goes up. But not everyone can think about that when in a extremely critical situation. A firefighter with experience will not need to acknowledge that because theyve done countless drills and who knows how many rescues so its second nature to them
As an old person who lived with her grandmother, who only had fireplaces for heat, I recognized immediately the mistake of going up. I didn’t hurt to have watched Sesame Street with my kids when they did fire safety week. “Get Low!”
@@TheMrTape Miserable condescension. This says far more about you than your targets. We see you. Don't bother typing a paragraph of bullshit either. It will not be read.
@@juti488 Indeed, common sense and critical thinking tend to fly out the window entirely when a chaotic situation erupts. Only those who are extremely adept at calming themselves, or are used to chaotic situations (like the firefighter) can typically hold onto their rational thought, instead of devolving into a frightened animal.
I can remember 11th November 2000, it was as sunny day and a perfect weather for skiing, but on this day i had no time for going skiing.
I live in the near of Kaprun, and from my balcony i have a directly view to the Kitzsteinhorn, and when i looked out i could noticed a little smoke but at first i thought it was a cloud or something else. A few time later i heard a emergency vehilce, an then another one ....and another one... and another one....
the smoke over the Kitzsteinhorn became more intense, and at this time i don't know what is happening in the mountain.
After i few time the news were on the radio, but nobody knows whats actually happening and how worse it would be.
I heard the whole day emergency vehilces and helicopters, but only a few people survided it.
Sometimes when i take a look at the Kitzsteinhorn i ask myself "what would be happend if go skiing on this day?"...
I've seen videos about this before, but they mostly focused on the event itself. Hearing all the investigative and legal proceedings that happened in detail was really interesting
Shameful that no one was held accountable for this tragedy!
You can’t held the people who didn’t purposely cause this situation accountable
Obviously it’s the company’s fault
You can’t really hold anyone accountable for this. Everyone involved was at fault tbh
@@captainshadowfox And a company is made of what, aliens?
There are at least 3-4 people responsible of not following industry standards (commercial plastic heater bodge job) and the TUV inspectors who missed not only the 30$ fan, but also nearby high pressure oil lines. There are minimum distances such a device can be installed at, and definitely not under such a line.
Sometimes accidents happen. Not everything has to be a witch hunt. Things happen and you learn from them.
@@shinyribs2178 nah, the company shouldve been fined 900 billion and their entire chain of command executed. These are criminal mistakes: no means of escape, no fire preventive systems, no communication means.
At the very least the country shoulve disbanded, the land given to the families affected.
i was there 2002 and even then you were able to smell the smoke from the line in the Alpine Center at the Mountain station
The smell will never really go away, it is in the stone (masonary).
I did Fire Restoration
and just smoke damage alone was incredible. We would come into a house after a fire and take all
the cloth material out
(Clothes, drapes, ect..)
Rip all the sheetrock out and Kiltz (paint) the studs and hang new sheetrock,
that didn't always work.
Any the ways...
I know, it's not the same thing...
Just my two cents.
@@fredgervinm.p.3315 it sounds too bad
All I can really say from this whole thing is: Good on the Germans for standing for what's right and doing their due diligence in their investigation. And I'd have expected more to be done than just a cover up on the Austrians' part...as a foreigner, I can only imagine how those who watched this whole thing unfold within their own country must feel...
When he said they went up my heart dropped.
People would have been extremely panicked and trying to get away from the fire, it would have made it really difficult to remember that smoke goes up.
If I was in this situation I think I would have found it extremely hard to make the decision to go down towards the fire, especially when carbon monoxide can mess with your thinking and make you more confused.
Very very tragic...
You act as if they even had a choice. Perhaps the backend of the train fire was too big to allow passage or they may have been overcome by smoke trying to go around the fire if it was passable.
The definition of a firetrap. A horrifying way to die. The trial is a complete miscarriage of justice and too par for the course in these cases.
Actually it's not. You go unconscious very fast.
I actually live around a 1 and a half hour drive from Kaprun in a place called Vöcklabruck. I took this mountain train so often back then before they had to completely upgrade it after the disaster. One of the victims was the wife of my Uncle
Rip :(
Sorry for your loss prayers ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Dude you are a complete and shameless liar. So, this UNFORSEEABLE disaster was foreseen by good old dad, huh? Fuq outta here. From the reports, it shows these heaters ONLY existed in the conductors compartments. Meaning there were only 2 of them on each train. Funny how amazingly perceptive old dad is.
@@wessebaggers Thank you ❤️
I'm horribly sorry
many people have commented on the lack of safety features but the two layer laminated glass which the passengers struggled to break was an example of exactly that: the automatic brakes and tunnels being wide enough to escape out the side doors likewise. which is a good illustration of how safety must never be treated as picking items from a catalogue but thinking of how people will interact with their surroundings in different situations. In this case the obvious omission was the lack of an emergency alarm in all compartments; the first "Harrison cord" type alarm was introduced to trains as early as the 1870s and the communication cord linked to automatic brakes in the 1890s. Operating regulations for years required that crews go to check what was wrong if the system was operated. Unfortunately health and safety becoming a matter of law bedevilled industry with safety features and checks which were in no way apposite to the risks of operation.
Rode that train dozens of times. We used to go there on our school ski trip and everyone hated that tunnel. The ski lifts took too long so everyone had to take the train.
I especially remember the rush of air when the final doors were opened at the top. Truly terrifying way to go.
One of the things that scares me is that the evacuation issue is one I might have fallen into. When I heard that they made a mistake, my first thought was "oh shit they probably went down instead of up, and then the brakes failed and hit them or something." Never even considered the smoke! Which tells me I could absolutely make that mistake too, which is terrifying.
Edit: Yep, that exact thing gets mentioned moments later lmao, see that's what I would have assumed was the big mistake! It's scary that in this situation, there could have been truly no good answer.
Just commented this same thing before I read this, that was my exact thought process too! Going down and around the fire seemed like the riskier path, I thought for sure the last carriage would be goners and most of the rest would make it out. Turns out it's the opposite and my instincts are deadly.
I made the wrong assumption too when I first watched this on Seconds from Disaster, and I consider myself an intelligent and logical person. Unless you have specialised knowledge, training or experience on the behaviour of fire, I think almost everyone will make the same fateful error. Fire is very counterintuitive.
@@WaterCrane specialized knowledge of how a fireplace works lol
@@WaterCrane I don't get it, how can you not know? You put a chimney above a fire? heat rises?
@@EpicCrust Animal instinct is to run away from the fire, not got towards it. In a panic I'm sure it might be easy to forget that chimney effect.
My aunt(she is a local and loves skiing) was literally about to get on this very ride, but the person in front of her was the last one that got in. This is absolutely crazy. Btw there is a lot of other stuff happening, that no one is talking about, because you can't compete with big corporations(Porsche is often involved) in any way
This was a really well made video. Good job.
Sad, that over and over people try to escape from a fire upward, and inevitable die from the smoke that also moves up and the actual killer in most fires.
There was a fire in my building on the top floor. I live one floor below but not near the apartment where the fire broke out, where the fire was contained by the concrete walls. The hallway of the top floor was filled with smoke but not on my floor. There was a smell afterwords but some air fresheners took care of that.
Some people have survived building fires by going up the roof.
@@Ozymandias1 You cannot compare a building fire to a mountain tunnel fire...
As explained in the video, due to the altitude difference, the tunnel reacted as a chimney. The fresh air was sucked up by the lower entrance. Then the smoke went upwards to the upper extremity of the tunnel.
What's most sad is that most people are so imbecile they don't know the most basics of physics. When the fuck did you ever see fire or smoke go downwards? Do you even observe, bro?
At least they went peacefully.
Compared to burn to death alive that is
Since when has anyone seen smoke go downwards. Sure they may have panicked but if you're that stupid to move upwards in a closed environment filled with smoke, you sure are not very bright.
A Tunnel (!) without fire extinguishing system. A train(!) without a fire extinguishing system. A train without any non hydraulic emergency door opening system.
And then installing a super cheap fan heater (Fakir in Germany is really the cheapest of cheap). Such heaters in public transportation must have fire detectors and automatic fire extinguishers. Again.
This is still unbelievable.
but still, fakir did nothing wrong it may be the cheapest but the company explicitly stated it's not supposed to be installed in a vehicle or that you can brake the seal's to do so.
@@Frankforsthoevel Of course Fakir is not responsible for this.
id argue the safety agenlcy that leats heater with such terrible design be sold is more responsible than the company@@PascalGienger
It's 2024. Anything is believable.
Its disgusting that that whole incident was swept under the carpet.
The same bs with the loveparade.
I live in Austria and have seen this all unfold. You have told the story very well. It still makes me sick to the stomach.
I get that the families want justice, but I think the initial prosecution overstepped by prosecuting so many different people. Going after repairmen and installation crews is just going to hurt your case when they’re inevitably acquitted.
Someone should claim responsibility but it should have been directed at the company who chose to install the fan and other entities involved in the process which got this faulty equipment installed. I think that would have been a lot more coherent and would have benefited the families more, earlier on. Obviously the tampering of evidence and obstruction is clearly unacceptable and those particular people who aided in that should be held accountable
What a waste of life though. I hope the families are doing better
I was gonna say that. Especially trying to prosecute the people that installed stuff that had nothing to do with the original fire itself.
My boyfriends brother died there. Their parents still want justice for this
@@ruffamilia6667 I get the impulse to need to blame someone, but there comes a line where you are crossing over from a real need for justice into just looking for scalps in the hope it will replace what was lost. What the prosecutor was doing was head hunting.
1) Guys, who come up with the idea to split-hang a domestic heater onto a hydraulic hub wall.
2) TUV people who were supposed to see the error in said design and stamp it "potential fire hazard".
3) Fellas, who stalled the investigation, and falsified the details. (and the person, hiring them)
Also, 4) those, who personally hunted the expert. (again, and the head)
That's the very basic list of people, who are responsible, and could as well be hanged (not literally, of course, but you get the idea).
Nah i think the prosecution had justification for everyone the prosecuted afterall it is up to the court to determine who is Guilty and who isnt. All of the people who got prosecuted were directly involved. A repairman or installation crew can very well be responsible for any negligence which could have led to the incident as could any manager or state official that allowed such an unsafe sytem to operate.
Horrifying. I'd never recover if someone I loved was lost in such a tragedy.
I remember when this disaster happened. It was very fortunate at least some people, the survivors had somebody they knew that fire travels up and that is best that they head down even if it meant technically they were headed towards the fire.
I too was thinking, "how did so many people die?" I guess because I've never been in a situation like this other than a bush fire, panic in such an enclosed environment, combined with a fire behind (below) you, the first reaction would be to run from the fire source. It takes a clear head to make decisions that go against your initial instincts. As in the case of a bushfire (in my experience), finding a narrow area of the firefront and running through that to get behind the firefront was the smart option. Further, the fire I was caught in wasn't an intense bushfire but the firefront would have been about the distance these poor souls had to go through if they'd gone down, rather than up. Some singed hair and minor burns are a small price to pay for survival.
Yes! If I've learned anything from watching disaster videos about this incident, and the kings cross station fire, it's that smoke and fire always go up narrow enclosed places, and you must always, always, always go down to escape. Even if it seems the more dangerous option. You might get injured, maybe die, but everyone who goes up ALWAYS dies. I'll take maybe over always.
I would have probably died. Bc I would have gone upwards.
Wow, I was born in 05 so I wasn't even alive when this happened but everyone knows smoke only goes up. I'm guessing their fear overtook their rationality.
@@aru-YT like some have said, in a situation like this one may not think about going back through the fire, but rather run away from it.
For me as a local resident it was so shocking to hear what happened just next to us. This was one of the worst accidents in the history of our country.
Except for the 2 world wars and several other incidents, this definitely is in the top 10
@@Nooely accidents... wouldnt say that ww1 and 2 are accidents..
@@esqx0878 oh god please don’t let me be misunderstood - you know what I meant :)
Watch Europa the last battle
Its crazy to me that they got away with it. Twice.
This is why having a smartphone for taking videos and pictures for evidence is really good nowadays.
even if the connection and reception is impaired in a tunnel, evidences are needed too.
Even if it’s just a small percentage of people, these videos save lives. If any of your viewers get caught in a fire, we’ll know to go down.
;)
I was wondering how so many people died in this if the could’ve gone down and avoided the smoke, then he mentioned how nearly everyone went up and I’m just her like 🤦🏻
@@amauer4834 Right?!
@@amauer4834 People panic, and when they panic they do irrational things. Some would have just followed others assuming they knew what they were doing. You see a similar pattern in a lot of these types of tragedies, it's incredibly sad.
@@amauer4834 because there was fire. The 12 had to pass the burning cabin.
The others acted out of first instinct which is getting away from the fireand was the most rational thing to do at that given moment in heat, darkness, and of course panic and distress.
Supposedly, evacuation plans call for you to exit upwind of a fire. But I think that only applies to fires on flat ground, not in tunnels or elevated places. The rules are probably different in those situations, and it probably changes depend on where the fire starts.
The rule that one must run in the opposite direction of the smoke when evacuating from a tunnel is now common knowledge, but I think this accident has made it more widely known.
(Even so, I am still not certain that I would be able to calmly do the same thing if I were actually there, daring to approach in the direction of the flames...)
And the ski wear and ski shoes, which are very toxic in terms of materials and hard to move in....
I was very surprised and scared when I learned from the news at that time that even the employees of the station were killed.
Many children in my country (Japan) also died, and although they are enshrined in a memorial hall, I feel even more sorry for them because they are so far away from home and not many people go there.
THANK YOU FOR SHARING VERY DETAIL VIDEO AS GREAT WATCHING
Phenomenal review..an excellent video and showcase of a TRAGEDY..THEN TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE.
The sad thing is there are lots of people partially responsible but it took a whole bunch of relatively small things to combine into this horror show. So sad.
The complete absence of any means of communication onboard is not a "relatively small thing". This is complete disregard for the safety of passengers. All train systems in the world have an intercom system to allow any passenger to report any kind of issue to the conductor. Why not this one?
@@christianbarnay2499 I agree but I suspect this was a legacy issue from the original train design that no-one ever thought to update over the decades. That seems to be the problem in total, no-one was looking at the whole picture and how they could come together to create the eventual disaster.
In cases of accidents that's most common thing - many small details and factors in deadlly combination.
I strongly remember the 2001 ski season following that horrible catastrophe.
Especially in the resort I was that had very similar installations, both main towns of the resort had one : Val d'Isère and Tignes (France).
The Val d'Isère one was particularly close in type to the one in Kaprun, almost an twin.
If my memory's right, they didn't open it till later in the season and then they had massive safety regulations.
All skiers and snowboarders carrying board wax, wax smelters, liners or any other sort of flammable stuff had to climb the slow way by using the chairlifts' alternative route.
Bags were searched and they gave complete safety instructions prior to boarding.
At the time the reasons for the disaster weren't clearly known so it felt a bit like an airport immediately after 9/11...
There were posters everywhere stating that you have to go down in case of fire, etc.
Things went back to normal later but they kept signs forbidding board wax accessories, just in case.
One thing I also remember vividly is the eerie silence in the funicular train during each climb.
As if everyone had lost confidence in the system and felt compelled to stay silent or talk at idle voice, like in a ceremony.
I did not know anyone linked to the Kaprun catastrophe but it stayed engraved in my mind as I'm a ski fan, subway fan and ski lifts enthusiast.
Ski resorts' funiculars are super efficient and fun to ride : you emerge from the darkness of the tunnel to the extremely bright light of a mountain peak in just a quick train ride. It's the happy subway of the ski slopes.
Thinking such a leisure mode of transportation turned into a nightmarish death trap is unsettling.
And the Austrian authorities' actions following the disaster, during and after the trial were really despicable, adding insult to injury.
Normally how long did the the train take from bottom to top? How do they remove heavy snow from the exposed sections? TY🙂
Fun to ride? Rides like these are giving me anxiety just by watching them😬 not because of this fire tragedy but because of how steep it is and for how long you are there in tunnel with 180 people on board, I am just a little bit scared of elevators but this is whole new level
@@scouser5039 It's just a cable hauled angled metro...
And frankly you barely see the slope outside.
Many that are afraid of heights and high cable lifts (chairlifts, gondolas and cable cars) much prefer funiculars because they can feel the vehicle rolling on the rails / the "ground" and can't see the height.
Funiculars are also perfectly stable, no matter the weather, something that can't be said about many other cable lifts.
I remember some pretty hellish chairlift and gondola rides on super windy days...
Several funiculars bring you so high that it's like a plane reaching cruise altitude, you exit the tunnel / top station above the clouds bathed in bright sun light.
And yes, it's quite fun to ride for many, myself included as it's the ski metro. Those that live in locations where they haven't subways or rail based transit really enjoy the novelty and uniqueness of the experience.
And those that live in cities and use subways everyday appreciate the spin of their daily transportation type into a leisure mode. And later they can think about the joys of the ski metro on their daily grind subway ride.
Anyway, funiculars are quite rare, and there's almost always an alternative route so you'll be ok whatever the ski resort you go to (alternative mode : bus on lower funiculars only ; gondolas, chairlifts, cable cars on lower and higher funiculars).
@@kristyhoward6897the kaprun one takes 8 minute and some seconds
@@kristyhoward6897there are certain machines for that snow removal
Hey I know I'm a year late to comment on this one... But your voice beats sooooo many others man. It's TV quality, I envy you sir. New sub here and I love it all.
The fact they went uphill and not down is amazing. Unfortunately could have been avoided
I was using this exact train in 1999 for the solar eclipse. It was a shock for me that this train burned just one year later.
Being a bus driver, it's crazy to see a passenger hauler lack adequate emergency exits being that our buses have at least 4 emergency windows, two roof exits, and windshields that can be kicked opened, bonus rear door for some buses as well.
Not mentioning emergency door unlock systems - sealed lever or break a glass and push button. But even that wouldn't really matter if people decided go up instead down. What a pitty...
It seems, lack of casual traffic accidents fooled the management into the idea of "unsinkable Titanic".
Like when that house in Russia had a fire of _fireproof_ insulation. No, it really was fireproof, just noone suspect the gaslines, which it covered, would leak and create a "pillow" of an air-gas mixture, under the entire wall.
The most enraging part of any of these situations, is when they say "Who would've thought it will do so?"
Well, when i was in school, we called a person with such capabilities "an Engineer". (Or an "Architech", in some languages) Lack of common sense in present "qualified" staff is shocking.
Very well done! Thanks
I've been on funiculars like this a bunch of times - they're quite common all across the alps. Never thought twice about the antiquated cable & hydraulic system, other than "oh, that's cool!". Now, I'm definitely going to try and steer clear!
Thank you for the graphics to give me a better understanding of what exactly happened and what the train looked like. Wish more channels did that.
This disaster, together with the Mont Blanc fire gave me an irrational fear of tunnels in the Alps. Although safety regulations are far more strict now.
This was the second absolutely horrible disaster I was personally involved to some fortunately very small extent, the other one being Los Alfaques 1978 in Spain which was even worse and hit me harder because I personally knew people that were on that camping ground.
Here my involvement was not very close, but my father was working in the construction office at Fakir as an engineer from the late 1960s until his retirement more than three decades later. I don’t like to speak of luck in a so absolutely horrible accident and cover-up, but he wasn’t in charge of the heaters but the vacuum cleaners which Fakir built among other household appliances.
This absolutely unnecessary tragedy still makes me incredible angry to this day, even though I am a very mild mannered person.
The absolute trash of people to me are not the ones that built this train or installed this heater because everybody can make a mistake and this can happen to all of us and that they didn’t want to stand up to it I can to some extent understand, but this does not go for the ones that covered it up and I wish only the worst to all of them! I truly hope they will rot in hell.
Thank you very much for this very thorough and very fact based documentation, even though it disturbs me very much to watch it I think such incidents should be never forgotten
You have a very good german pronounciation, as a native german i
speaker i really appreciate it.
We rode this train year before this accident, as a child I thought to myself how long and dark the ride was. It still haunts me it could have been our family of 5. Heather that supposed to be used in house and had been modified, found with traces of hydralic oil inside does not hold in court? Company that installed the heather and TUV who approved the train should have been found guilty...
It's trruely shoking, with all the facts, presented in the video, how many people in the comments swallowed the "they could not see this coming" pill. It gives me an impression, people of today think "responsibility is when you respond to the situation with apologies". It's not a kindergarten, it's a living nightmare. Howmany else "accidents" like this would happen, before "i'msorries" would actually start to think before they do anything stupid, taking hundreds of lives...
Dark long ride haunts you? 👻
The only lesson I take from this and a few other fires, is to go down, not up, away from a fire if at all possible. This accident was 100% preventable, caused by carelessness and complacency.
away from smoke** sometimes you may have to go towards the fire
Unbelievable. Didn’t know Austrian courts work this way. Disgusting.
today I learnt an important lesson. fire and smoke heads upwards. hope this knowledge never has to come in use for me.
Sometimes stuff like this happens and you think "maybe it's not anyone's fault, it was just an oversight anyone could've made a mistake on", then you learn more about it and realize it definitely should've been avoided because someone went out of their way to cut corners and do sloppy, unsafe work.
Best pronounciation of German names and places in a documentary ever! Some small glitches (TÜV is nearly impossible for Americans), but overall amazing. Your effort in recherching the pronounciation alone is impressive, the rest even more!
what does AG mean?
@@MarcDufresneosorusrex AG means Aktiengesellschaft, that is a joint-stock company, possibly but not necessarily publicly traded. Maps to Limited Company or Corporation.
@@patrickstrasser-mikhail6873 Gracias Kumpel
Smoke rises,very simple, but not when your in a panic mode unfortunately.
Very sad and interesting thank you rest in peace to all 🙏🙏🙏
I can't belive there was no efforts to appeal the second trial verdict, which despite the compensation for the families of the the victims (considering the scale of the accident, still not enough), was disgraceful because the ones responsible avoided direct punishment...
Corruption...
This is why fire safety and rules of fire is something you have to learn even in stressful situations
*fantastic* coverage of the investigation and court proceedings - I'd seen another video or two on the disaster but not on the legal clusterf that followed. Thank you!
Such a tragic loss of life :( RIP to them all and shame on those who caused this accident.
Man, this made me tear up 😢 those poor people, i couldn't imagine the panic 😞
I really appreciate the use of footage from Seconds from Disaster. I enjoyed this documentary series very much when I was a kid. In fact, this topic was the second episode I watched of the series, proceeding the episode of the Sunset Limited crash, and after the episode of the Eschede Train Disaster.
The second I heard the train stopped due to the fire I was thinking “please let them know that smoke rises and they go down”. So sad. 😞
We learned that in 4th grade. FD came to school and did a class on Fire Safety.
In all fairness to the Victims, I was not in the tunnel (TY God!).
The sound of the fire growing (fire makes noise), people passed out, others screaming.
Think about this, appx
150 ppl in a space a little wider than a train
(18-20' ?) and they all had Ski-boots on...
they didn't go down because that would have meant walking towards the fire and going past it, which takes a lot of courage and a level head, even if you know that behind the fire is fresh air - and it's unlikely that the people in front heard the firefighter in the back over all the noise in the tunnel. RIP
Edit: the video even says that they had to pass the burning conductor's cabin, but I feel like they should have emphasized that point because it doesn't quite come across how daring and terrible that must have been.
the first thing I thought when I saw the image of the tunnel was "oh god that's a giant chimney" and I like to think that I would have tried to make it past the fire but I feel like at that point I would have been passed out from smoke inhalation already.
I didn't know. But now I do.... sad 😥 😔
Everything needs to have ways to alert people to a fire. Doesn’t matter if there’s no possibility or not
Similar to ANY government system, "nobody" is held accountable!!
never thought a country like austria would be so sloppy in all of these aspects
Greed is not just an American trade-mark...
Since then tunnel systems have been heavily upgraded. Not only funiculars but also road and train tunnels
We have had 4 cancellors within one period of governance. So yeah, we are good at being an utter mess.
If you grew up here, you'd know, that's Austria in a nutshell.
Austria Ski industy mafia at its best. Excellent review.
In hindsight, always go down...
This is so heartbreaking. RIP
THANK YOU for making these! I would NEVER have known to run towards the fire because of the chimney affect!! I would have d I e d for sure! I would have made the same mistake they all made if I hadn't watched this video! Hopefully I'm never in this situation but if I am I know what to do!!
Not 'toward the fire'...down, or to the side.
literally the first thing that came to my mind when fire was mentioned, 'don't go up, flames and smoke travel up'
I was in Kaprun that weekend snowboarding!! It was so gut wrenching!! We had come down the mountain early to get back to our base (I was stationed in Germany) and probably was saved by that fact. Such a tragedy!!
THIS WAS A VERY GOOD VIDEO & WELL PUT TOGETHER!!!!
I remember this disaster... I went skiing in Kaprun/Zell am See that season in February 2001... my ski instructor was devastated, she lost friends and colleagues.
I like how the ad before this video was a cedar point commercial. Last video I watched was the top thrill dragster video
This feels a lot like the Titanic. A bunch of small problems that resulted in a disaster. A sobering reminder that somebody's death is lurking behind every safety regulation that exists today. Check the batteries in your smoke detectors and make sure you have a family evacuation plan.
As much as this was tragic, it did really make pulley systems like this safer, like he said, accidents never really happened with these types of systems. And now they’re a lot safer than they were 20 years ago. It sucks that it was at the cost of so many lives… but it does allow us to prevent anything like this in the future
Very well researched, well explained video. Well done.
Crazy. The first thing I think of when I hear "space heater" are the dozens of stories of them burning down people's houses, how on earth you install one in a train and don't immediately follow that with fire suppression blows my mind.
I literally unplug mine whenever I’m not watching it like a hawk
I'm super surprised so many people made the wrong decision to walk uphill. How did they all ignore common physics?
You'd be surprised what panic and toxic fumes can do to reasoning.
As a local i think it's unbearable, that the case was manipulated and just thrown down like nothing. I expect more of a country like Austria especially when it comes to tourism.
In the change of years, until now, most cable trains were remover and normal cable cars have been installed. I live about 20 minutes away from Kaprun and i have to say I didn't know Abt the accident until i was 16. At least many things have changed since that... Expect for the dumbness of the tourism bosses, like we have seen at the beginning of corona...
No one will fix anything for you. If you want something to be done right you gotta do it yourself
@@chas1878 This is why Humanity's Selfishness and Bias kills and injures many other innocent humans in the name of covering it up like a staged orchestrated terrorist attack.
"I expect more of a country like Austria." The country that has kept the ÖVP in the government for almost 40 years?
Tbh this is precisely what I’d expect of Austria 😅 I don’t see why you’d expect more
@@emoedisonlike fr
Love seeing new videos from you. Thank you for the stories.
The portion of the video covering the trial is so infuriating.
good documentary.