Up to 50 people left dangling after Crabbe Mountain chairlift breaks

Up to 50 people were stranded in the air for more than two hours Thursday when thechairliftatCrabbeMountain, north of Fredericton,broke down in thelate afternoon.

Jordan Cheney, general manager of the hill, said the incident happened around 3:50 p.m.

"There seemed to be something going on with the lift," Cheney said.

"It was having a hard time, there was an electrical issue that was a back up brake basically that was engaged that we couldn't turn off, so there was some sort of a switch that was missing."

Cheney said the Crabbe Mountain team was having trouble getting the backup engine going, so they made the call to evacuate.

Emergency responders from North York Regional fire departments in Keswick Valley and Millville, as well as those from Nackawic's fire department, joined the rescue effort soon after.

"There were probably 40 to50 people on there.Some wereevacuatedwith ropes and harnesses, others were after the lift got going," said Reuben Carter, station chief in Millville.

He said they carefully helped as manypeople as they couldbeforethe lift's backup engine kicked in to bring the remaining skiersto safety.

"They got the auxiliary engine running which was able to slowly move the lift upward and offload the rest of the people," he said.

Cheney said no one was injured.

"We train in this two to three times a season," he said.

"We hope we never have to do it, but we're trained to do it when and if that time comes so, that being said, I think staff rallied and knew what to do and we were well prepared from the time the evacuation was called."

Cheney said 116 chairs were unloaded in two hours and some of the 40 to 50 people who were strandedreported being very cold, but were warming up in the hill's lodge.

Hesaid the hillhad experienced an electricalproblem with thechairliftearlier in the weekand it's happened before as well.

Cheney was not sure how long the latest problem wouldtake to repair.

"It can be anywhere from two hours to a week. Rest assured, we've got mechanics on site investigating and as soon as we can get it up and running, we will."

CrabbeMountain will be open again on Friday. Until thechairliftis fixed, theT-barand Pony Tow will be used to transport people up the hill.