Haifa Cable Car Malfunction Traps 20 Passengers Mid-Air

By Вести-Ynet

Translated & summarized from Vesty by baba

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Russian · 9 newsrooms covering

Twenty passengers were stranded for over two hours on Haifa's "Rahbalit" cable car on Thursday evening, November 12, due to a technical malfunction. The incident occurred on route 27, two days after the cable car resumed service post-maintenance. Fire services prepared for evacuation, and passengers described the ordeal as a "nightmare." This marks the second major malfunction since the cable car's April 2022 opening.

The story in 5 lines · by baba

Twenty people were trapped for over two hours on Haifa's "Rahbalit" cable car on Thursday evening.
A technical malfunction caused the cable car to stop on route 27, suspending passengers mid-air.
The incident occurred just two days after the cable car resumed service following scheduled maintenance.
Fire services were preparing for a complex evacuation operation for the stranded passengers.
This is the second significant malfunction since the cable car's opening in April 2022.

Haifa Cable Car Malfunction Traps 20 Passengers Mid-Air — Editorial illustration generated by baba News, not a photograph of the event.

Approximately 20 people were stranded for over two hours on Haifa's "Rahbalit" cable car on Thursday evening, November 12. The incident occurred on route number 27 due to a technical malfunction that halted operations on both sections of the line. The cable car had resumed service just two days prior, following scheduled maintenance. While the lower section's operations were eventually restored, the upper section remained non-operational, leaving passengers suspended in cabins. Fire services were preparing for a complex evacuation operation. Itzik Nahardaya, a resident of Ashdod, was among those trapped with his wife. He described the experience as a "nightmare" after their cabin stopped during their ascent towards the university, leaving them stuck for about an hour and a half. This is not the first issue for the Haifa cable car, which opened in April 2022 at a cost exceeding 330 million shekels. Six months after its opening, a power supply failure trapped dozens of passengers for up to an hour, though no immediate safety threat was reported at that time.