A preliminary report released Saturday on the deadly funicular accident in Lisbon found that a cable on the upper car had disconnected, and said investigators would be looking at that factor, among others, as they continued to try to understand what went wrong.
According to the report by Portuguese authorities, the cable connecting the two cars had failed at its attachment point on the upper car. Investigators found that though two braking systems were applied, neither one could stop the rapid descent of the car, which is estimated to have made impact at 60 kilometers per hour, or over 35 miles per hour. The report suggested that this was not surprising, however, because without the support of the connecting cable, the brakes alone “do not have sufficient capacity to stop the moving cabins.”
The report, from the Portuguese aviation and rail accident investigative agency, did not explain how the cable broke free. From an initial review of the wreckage, authorities said, the remainder of connecting cable, including the attachment point on the other car, presented no anomalies. The report cautioned that no conclusions about the accident’s cause could be made, and that another preliminary report would be released within 45 days.
The funicular, the Elevador da Glória, for years has taken commuters and tourists up and down a steep hill in Lisbon’s center. It had two cars; one went up as the other went down, linked by a cable that ran through a pulley at the top of the hill.
On Wednesday evening, the car traveling uphill, which was close to the bottom of its route, halted suddenly and then fell backward, injuring some passengers. But the car going downhill went into free fall, jumping off the tracks and crashing against a building. Sixteen people were killed.
The victims included an American, two Canadians, five Portuguese and people from South Korea, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France and Ukraine, according to Portugal’s judicial police. At least 21 survivors of the accident were injured, the authorities said.
The funicular was operated by Carris, the Lisbon public transport company. The company’s president, Pedro Bogas, said on Thursday that maintenance of the funicular had been outsourced since at least 2007. Mntc, a private Portuguese engineering company, has held that contract since 2019.
The funicular had an earlier accident in 2018, derailing without causing injuries. At the time, the Portuguese newspaper Público wrote, Carris called the cause of the derailment “a technical issue.”
On Thursday, Carris said in a statement that all maintenance protocols had been followed before Wednesday’s crash.
Portuguese transit workers have been concerned about the braking system and the maintenance structure of the funicular for years, a union official said in an interview on Saturday.
Manuel Leal, a leader of the Federation of Transport and Communication Trade Unions in Portugal, said that
maintenance services were once handled internally by Carris, and that outside companies may not have had the institutional knowledge to deal with the funicular, which has operated in various forms since 1885, and used older parts.
Carris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many in Lisbon are still in shock after the crash of the funicular, one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.
As of Saturday, the Portuguese police had listed only the nationalities of the victims without identifying them. But portraits of some of them started to emerge.
Heather Hall, 51, a professor who loved to travel, and the only American killed, was visiting Lisbon to speak at a conference, according to her workplace, the College of Charleston, in South Carolina, where she taught special education.
She “passed away doing what she did best — living life fully, boldly, and with a heart wide open to the world,” her family said in a statement.
The Portuguese victims included André Jorge Gonçalves Marques, 45, the operator of the car that went off the tracks, and Alda Matias, who had worked at Santa Casa da Misericórdia, a charitable organization in Portugal.
“Despite being a director — a high-ranking position — she was very approachable, spoke to everyone, and was kind and calm,” Paula Sampaio, a colleague and friend of Ms. Matias’s, said in an interview.
Blandine Daux and André Bergeron, archaeological conservators in Quebec, Canada, had been married for more than two decades and were visiting Portugal to celebrate Mr. Bergeron’s 70th birthday, his brother, Eric Bergeron, said in an interview from Lisbon, where he traveled after learning of their deaths.
Mr. Bergeron, 58, said he got a bad feeling on Wednesday, when he tried to contact the couple after seeing news of the crash. The messages were delivered, he said, but received no reply.
Kieran Corcoran contributed reporting.
Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.
Pranav Baskar is an international reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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