CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine (AP) - A 35-year-old chair lift set for improvements failed Tuesday in high winds at a Maine resort, sending skiers - some of them children - plummeting into ungroomed snow far below that fell with the Northeast's recent blizzard and softened the landing.
At least eight people, the children among them, were taken to a hospital after the double-chair lift at Sugarloaf derailed during a busy vacation week at the resort 120 miles north of Portland. Dozens of skiers remained on the crippled lift for an hour or more until patrols could get them down.
The resort was not operating the failed lift and two others early in the day because of winds but deemed them safe to use before the accident at 10:15 a.m., said Ethan Austin, spokesman for Sugarloaf. The resort said the cable that supports the chairs jumped off track, though the exact cause of the failure is being investigated. Wind were gusting at 40 mph at the time.
The resort said the lift, which went into service in 1975 and recently passed an inspection, was set for upgrades or repairs but declined to specify when. About five chairs fell 25 to 30 feet onto a ski trail below, officials said.
Rebecca London, one of the skiers who tumbled to the snow, told The Associated Press that her face hit a retaining bar, but that her goggles spared her from serious injury. She credited new snow underneath the lift with a soft landing; the resort said it got 20 to 22 inches in Monday's storm.
"Thankfully, they didn't groom it last night, so they left it like it was," she said. "So the snow was all soft."
Most of the skiers who fell appeared to be stunned but OK, she said, and the ski patrol was on the scene within minutes to treat the injured. London, 20, of Carrabassett Valley, said she wasn't hurt badly enough to go to a hospital.
Jay Marshall, a ski coach who hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to the broken one, said that his lift was moving but that the broken one was not.
There was a "loud snapping noise" after the lift restarted, he said, then some screams.
"The next thing I know, it was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo," said Marshall, of Carrabassett Valley. He said it was too difficult to watch, so he looked away. "It was terrifying," he said.
There could have been as few as 50 people or as many as 160 on the lift at the time, according to Sugarloaf, owned by Boyne Falls, Mich.-based Boyne Resorts. Sugarloaf workers used a pulley-like system to lower skiers to safety.
Jill Gray, a spokeswoman for Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, 45 miles away, said eight adults and children were taken there but did not give details on the injuries. One of the injured was flown on to Maine Medical Center in Portland, she said.
It's unclear whether the accident was wind-related or mechanical. Because of its position on the face of the mountain, the lift that failed is more vulnerable to being shut down because of high winds, said Austin, the resort spokesman.
The failed lift and two others started the day on a "wind hold," Austin said, but Sugarloaf officials later deemed it safe to operate before the accident at 10:15 a.m.
Guidelines for "wind holds" include wind speed and other factors, but sometimes it's as simple as noting whether chairs are swinging in the wind, he said.
The failed lift is 4,013 feet long, gains 1,454 feet of elevation and nearly reaches the summit of 4,327-foot Sugarloaf, the state's second-tallest mountain. It went into service in 1975 and was modified in 1983, according to Sugarloaf officials.