Vaujany

Economy

Grande Boucle Féminine stage finishes

Year	Stage	Start of stage	Distance	Stage winner
2005	6	Allemond	6.5 km	Cable car accident During a test run of a new cable car, one week before its expected opening date on 13 January 1989, the cable car fell into the valley below while the cabin was passing a point from the arrival station. There were eight technicians on board the lift, all of whom died. They had all worked for SATA or Poma. An expert witness at the trial claimed that the design was a poor-quality copy of a Swiss system, leading to design problems which rendered the operation of the cable car unsafe. Poma did not have much experience building this style of lift at the time and had agreed to complete the construction in ten months, compared to the two years proposed by some of its rivals, leading to claims that corners had been cut in the construction of the lift. The consulting engineer also suggested that there was a lack of communication between the companies. On 9 September 1996 five people were charged with manslaughter at the criminal court of Grenoble; these were Jean-Pierre Cathiard, Serge Tarassof, Reylans Michel, Denis Creissels and Jacques Lombard. As part of the trial, four experts highlighted many mistakes made by Poma, most of which were based on the stabilizer, which had been copied from another company before having further issues added to its design.