Almost two months after , the capital of Portugal is still marked by the tragedy of the Elevador da Glória, one of the icons of the city, which on September 3, at six in the afternoon, plunged down the steep Calçada da Glória after the cable that joined its two carriages broke. On that uncontrolled journey towards the Plaza de Restauradores, the vehicle left the lane and ended up turning into a mass of iron. Sixteen people lost their lives and more than twenty were injured in an incident that shook an entire country that, with the publication of the preliminary report, has discovered a chain of failures that could have been avoided.
The preliminary investigation reconstructs in detail the last days of the Elevador da Glória before the accident. According to the report, the main cable, an essential part of the counterweight system, was not certified for the transportation of people, nor did it comply with the internal standards that Carris itself required of its suppliers. The document also indicates that this type of cable should not be installed with swivel links at the ends, such as those used by the Glória mechanism and that of Lavra, its twin funicular.
The sequence that led to the tragedy began long before September 3. The text of the Cabinet for the Prevention and Investigation of Air and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF) identifies a chain of administrative and technical failures: the acquisition of materials, their approval and the lack of verification at the installation. The cable, manufactured by a supplier not on the approved list, was accepted without additional testing or quality controls, even though internal regulations required it.
The investigators speak of an “accumulation of errors” within Carris and of “insufficient or inadequate” internal control mechanisms to detect irregularities. In practice, this means that those responsible for maintenance validated materials and tasks without checking in the field whether they met specifications.
Furthermore, in the area where the break occurred, it was not possible to carry out routine visual inspections without disassembling part of the structure. Records show that “completed” checks were noted at regular intervals, but technicians could not access the exact point where the damage was located. The result: an apparently monitored system that, in reality, operated with incomplete information.
Despite the seriousness of the conclusions, the report also recognizes an important nuance: it has not been possible to determine whether the use of the non-certified cable was the direct cause of the breakage, because identical models had operated without incident for more than six hundred days on other funiculars in the city. However, the GPIAAF itself warns that the repetition of non-compliant cables, added to the lack of control, constitutes “an unacceptable risk” for public safety.
This point is key: the report does not accuse, but it does reveal a pattern of structural negligence in which documentation replaced real control and regulations became procedures. What happened at the Glória was not a specific error, but the consequence of a bureaucratized and opaque maintenance system, which accumulated failures until physics prevailed over custom.
Political and business reactions
The publication of the preliminary report has reopened the debate on the management of public services in Lisbon. The mayor, Carlos Moedas, tried to close ranks around the idea that the tragedy had a “technical and not political” origin. In statements to SIC Notícias, the conservative councilor maintained that the study “reaffirms that the unfortunate tragedy of the Elevador da Glória was derived from technical causes”, alluding to those who – according to him – politicized the event during the recent municipal campaign.
Moedas, re-elected just a week ago, defended that “political responsibility has already been resolved” and that it is up to the technicians to clarify the causes. However, his position has not dispelled doubts about the City Council’s role in supervising Carris, a public urban transport company under municipal control.
The operator, for its part, has issued a statement in which it assures that “it was not aware of any non-compliance in the maintenance” of the funicular. It points to the external firm in charge of the service since 2019, MNTC, as possibly responsible for not having fulfilled the contract “duly”, although it admits that this breach “was never reported.” Meanwhile, Carris has fired the maintenance director of Electrical Mode, the area that includes the elevators, and emphasizes that the purchase of the cables was made under previous management.
Both statements—that of the mayor and that of the company—seem to be part of the same strategy: to delimit responsibilities in the opposite direction. One targets the technicians, the other targets a subcontractor. In the middle, there remains evidence that none of the control mechanisms prevented an inadequate cable from operating for almost a year on public transportation that moves thousands of passengers every week.
A heritage in suspense
The Elevador da Glória, inaugurated in 1885, is part of Lisbon’s urban memory. Its route connects the Restauradores Square with Bairro Alto and the São Pedro de Alcântara viewpoint, one of the most visited locations in the city. After the accident, the funicular was dismantled and all tourist elevators in the capital remain suspended while safety measures are reviewed.
What happened has opened an uncomfortable debate in Portugal: how to preserve historical heritage without compromising the safety of passengers. The preliminary report does not determine whether the defective cable was the direct cause of the break, but does state that it broke after 337 days of use and that there was a history of similar cables being installed for more than six hundred days “without incident.”
This technical ambiguity does not mitigate the root of the problem: a historical transportation system where routine maintenance, lack of control and institutional neglect converged at the same point. In Lisbon, the Elevador da Glória tragedy is no longer just an accident: it is the mirror of a city that now reviews how trust in a wrong cable could go so far.
