This is the terrifying moment cable cars on a newly renovated gondola lift lurched up and down as they sped up an Austrian mountainside.
Footage shows the eight-person carriages swinging erratically while travelling up the steep slope in the Zillertal Arena ski area, Tyrol, on Sunday.
In the video, which has since gone viral, skiers below can be seen stopping to watch the astonishing sight.
Although many found the incident alarming, the managing director of the Zeller Bergbahnen cable cars, Annemarie Kröll, insisted passengers were not at risk.
‘There was no danger to the guests at any time – neither in the gondolas nor on the slopes,’ she told Krone newspaper.
She added: ‘The rocking motion seen in the video is due to new drive units and changed parameters.
‘This is particularly noticeable in the long span between support towers 2 and 3. It is essential to emphasize that the safety of the passengers in the gondolas was never at risk.’
Kröll said the gondolas’ operating speed has now been adjusted to reduce vibrations and that this measure will remain in effect until the technology is updated.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
It comes after last year a British couple died alongside two others when the cable car they were travelling in plummeted 100ft into an Italian mountainside.
The holidaymakers were travelling up Monte Faito, which overlooks the bay of Naples, alongside two Israeli tourists and the cabin’s driver, named in Italian media as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato.
The group had set off up the mountain in one of the cableway’s two cabins, leaving from the station in the historic town of Castellammare di Stabia at 2.40pm on April 17.
Six minutes later, with the cabin understood to have been just 20 seconds away from reaching the safety of the terminal at the top of the 3,700ft peak, it ground to a halt.
Officials have said that the emergency braking system that was meant to hold it in place appears to have failed, meaning the cabin would have started sliding back down the wire.
It was then that the traction cable snapped, sending the carriage and those in it swinging into a nearby pylon ‘at full speed’, according to the boss of the firm that runs the cable car.
The cabin then plummeted nearly 100ft into the tree-covered ravine below, with its metal walls crumpled by thick branches as it split into pieces.
Parts of it became lodged in the tree canopy while other bits of debris rolled down the slope, with the people inside thrown across the forest, Italian media reports.
All but one of those on board lost their lives, with the Israeli man incredibly found by rescue teams among the mangled wreckage, along with the body of his partner and the three other passengers, some two hours after the alarm was first raised.
