Monte Faito cable car tragedy: Prosecutor's Office: "Human negligence, trial soon for 26 suspects."

The Monte Faito cable car tragedy: a complex and difficult investigation, but the preliminary investigation that will lead to the trial will be concluded before the summer.

According to initial investigations, the cable car cabin did not collapse due to strong winds but rather due to "human negligence." This is the hypothesis of the Torre Annunziata prosecutor's office, which is coordinating the investigation.

Exactly one year after the Monte Faito cable car collapsed, killing four people and seriously injuring a fifth, Nunzio Fragliasso, the public prosecutor of the Torre Annunziata court, provides an update on the investigation and trial.

The tragedy, which was avoidable, "should teach us a lot," Fragliasso said, referring to prevention efforts: "Inspections must be effective, regular, and conducted carefully."

The prosecutor, in the presence of representatives of the provincial fire department, the Naples Police Headquarters' mobile squad, and the Castellammare di Stabia police station, emphasized that "the investigations, launched immediately after the event, on the same day as the events, both at the valley cable car station and at the site where the cabin had fallen, immediately proved particularly complicated and difficult due to the extremely inaccessible nature of the area, given the difficulty of recovering the fallen cabin, which remained suspended along the side of the mountain, held in place only by a few trees on a nearly vertical wall about 40 meters from the road."

Twenty-six people are under investigation, 24 victims, and 29 defense lawyers are involved in the complex trial that opened following the accident and the investigation. In a lengthy press release, the prosecutor's office details the complex and laborious investigations undertaken to recover the cabin and the artifacts in a remote area of ​​Mount Faito. Fragliasso, describing the phases of the investigation, argued that the numbers listed in the press release "provide an idea, albeit only a partial one, of the difficulty and complexity of both the investigation and the expert assessments carried out thus far."

The prosecutor's complex investigation to establish responsibilities: 25 people and the EAV are involved

There are 26 suspects (25 individuals and EAV, the holding company for public transport in the Campania Region) while 24 are injured parties (surviving victims and relatives of the deceased victims).

The investigation involved 29 defense attorneys (24 for the defendants and five for the injured parties); two court experts; two technical consultants for the public prosecutor; 23 technical consultants for the private parties; ten hectares of land covered by the investigation (for the purpose of searching for and recovering evidence); 158 firefighter visits, employing a total of 1.370 men, to recover the collapsed cabin and other parts (undercarriage and pylon) and search for evidence (cast head bushings), as well as to create safe access routes for technicians, magistrates, and judicial police personnel. Over one hundred inspections were carried out by the police of the Castellammare di Stabia police station, independently and in support of the fire brigade and the forensic police; approximately eighty inspections were carried out by the forensic police, for a total of nearly 150 working days, employing a total of approximately 600 personnel for the recovery and cataloguing of 44 finds; three actual months for the recovery of the crashed cabin, the undercarriage and the connecting pylon (from August to December 2025).

All this makes it clear how complex it has been up to now to gather all the elements needed to clarify the responsibilities of the 26 defendants.

Wreaths were laid for the four victims, and the fifth survivor returned to Israel.

On the first anniversary, a memorial day was held in Castellammare di Stabia to remember the four victims: the train driver, Carmine Parlato, 59, from Castellammare di Stabia; the Palestinian-Israeli Janan Suliman, 25; and the British Margaret Elaine Winn, 58, and her husband, Derek Winn, 65. Janan's brother survived, but was seriously injured and is now in his homeland receiving treatment. 

At the Sanctuary of Mount Faito, dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, the Archbishop of Sorrento-Castellammare, Francesco Alfano, along with the rector, Don Catello Malafronte, celebrated a mass in remembrance of the victims of the tragedy of April 17, 2025. Then, together with the mayors of Pimonte and Vico Equense, a wreath was laid in memory of the victims. Only the sister of the cable car driver, Carmine Parlato, was present. Downstream, at the EAV station from which the cable car departed, two hours later, another wreath of red anthuriums was placed under the green cabin, which for a year has been stationary in the same position it was in at 2:47 PM, the time of the disaster. A young trumpet player played the "unscheduled silence."

"We are gathered to commemorate a moment of suffering and death," Archbishop Alfano said, "but also to assume our responsibility to prevent similar moments from recurring and to remember that life must be valued, thanking God for giving it to us, to create moments of serenity and peace." Mayor Luigi Vicinanza also spoke on behalf of the mayors of Vico Equense and Pimonte, thanking Alison Kerr, Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy, ​​for their presence and for the cooperation received from the British authorities from the very beginning of the tragedy, "for the recognition of the victims and for the assistance to their families." EAV President Umberto De Gregorio declined to comment, other than "three words," he said: "pain, sadness, and silence. I would also like to reiterate our full cooperation at all levels in the search for the truth."