Three employees of a cable car company in Austria have been acquitted in a lawsuit over a skiing accident in Tyrol that killed a 28-year-old Dutch woman last year. The public prosecutor had accused the director and two other employees of the cable car company of negligence for keeping the ski slope open despite extremely icy conditions.
The accident happened on January 1 last year on a slope in the Zillertal, in the province of Tyrol. The woman slipped in the area around the Hintertux Glacier. She fell on the icy track and broke through a safety net. She then crashed into a tree. On the same day, seven other winter sports enthusiasts were injured on the same slope, including the 27-year-old girlfriend of the deceased woman.
The court in the Austrian city of Innsbruck stated that it had not been sufficiently proven that the company responsible for safety was negligent. The judge determined that it is possible that the red slope where the accident occurred quickly became icier and slippery after the first inspection by the company.