One dead, another critically injured after gondola crash at Quebec’s Mont Tremblant

One person has died and another remained in critical condition on Sunday after they were thrown from a sightseeing gondola at the popular Mont-Tremblant resort in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains.

Provincial police said the crash occurred shortly before noon after a piece of construction equipment struck the gondola at the mountain resort around 105 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

The force of the impact threw the two occupants out of the gondola, police said.

“Unfortunately, the two people fell several meters to hit the ground,” police spokesman Sgt. Eric Cadotte said in an interview.

The injured person has been transferred to a Montreal-area hospital, police said, and their life remains in danger.

Investigators from the major crimes division were on the scene, Cadotte said, adding that it doesn’t mean police believe the incident was the result of a crime.

“It’s the usual protocol to have people from major crimes to carry out analyses. They’ve set up a scene halfway up the mountain, under the gondola, to clarify the circumstances, but it’s too early to draw any conclusions,” Cadotte said.

Quebec’s Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said in a post on Twitter that she is following the situation closely.

A statement from Station Mont Tremblant said the construction equipment that was involved in the accident was operated by a third party. It said the gondola remains closed until further notice.

“We are saddened by this situation and Station Mont Tremblant offers its most sincere condolences to all those involved,” Annique Aird, Station Mont Tremblant’s vice-president of sales, marketing and communications, said in the statement.

The resort said in a post on Facebook that activities on the mountain, including an ongoing Blues Festival, were cancelled for the rest of the day due to the incident.

Last December, a gondola crashed at Mont Sainte-Anne, near Quebec City, but no one was injured.