Monterosa Ski chief executive acquitted over fatal maintenance accident

The chief executive of Monterosa Ski, Giorgio Munari, has been acquitted over the workplace death of a company employee during maintenance work on the Stafal–Sant’Anna cable car in Gressoney-La-Trinité.

The decision was delivered in Aosta on 16 September at the conclusion of proceedings conducted under the abbreviated trial procedure. Munari was acquitted “because the fact does not exist”—the Italian formula indicating that the court did not find the alleged criminal responsibility established.

The case followed the death of Stefano Rabaglio, a 51-year-old Monterosa Ski employee, in September 2024. Rabaglio had been carrying out work on the cableway’s cables when he became trapped between a maintenance trolley and a spacer belonging to the installation. He suffered injuries that proved fatal.

A second defendant, Aurelio Consol, the technical operator who had started the system, took a different route through the proceedings. He reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and received a sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment.

The contrasting outcomes bring the criminal case to a close at first instance, while leaving the central questions around the accident’s operational chain sharply defined: how the maintenance procedure was organised, who had authority to activate the installation and how safeguards were applied while a worker was operating in a hazardous area.

Those questions are particularly sensitive in cableway operations, where ordinary passenger transport and technical maintenance involve very different risk profiles. During maintenance, workers can be close to moving machinery, cables, carriages and structural components that are normally isolated from passengers. Safety depends on a strict sequence of authorisations, communication and physical protections before any movement takes place.

The accident occurred away from the tourist use for which the Stafal–Sant’Anna line is known. The cable car forms part of the Monterosa Ski network, which links the Gressoney valleys with the wider Monterosa ski area. For the company and the local tourism economy, the installation is a key piece of mountain infrastructure; for employees, it is also an industrial workplace requiring highly specialised maintenance.

Munari’s acquittal does not erase the death or settle every question that may arise from it. A criminal court’s finding concerns the specific charges and evidence presented in the proceedings. It is not, by itself, a general certification that every procedure surrounding the accident was beyond criticism. Nor does the sentence imposed on Consol establish, without further explanation, the precise division of responsibility between the individuals involved.

That distinction matters in workplace-fatality cases. Criminal proceedings examine whether the evidence meets the legal threshold for personal liability. Separate processes may address regulatory compliance, civil compensation, employment responsibilities or the wider lessons for an organisation’s safety system. The available reports on the judgment do not indicate whether any such proceedings remain active.

The case also illustrates the difficulty of assigning responsibility in complex technical environments. A major cableway operation involves managers, technical directors, operators, maintenance staff and external oversight. The existence of a fatal event does not automatically determine which person, if anyone, committed a criminally punishable omission. The court’s acquittal of the company chief executive confirms that senior corporate position alone was not sufficient to establish his liability in this case.

For the family and colleagues of Rabaglio, however, the legal conclusion comes after a loss that cannot be reduced to the wording of a judgment. The 51-year-old was killed while performing work intended to keep the mountain transport system operating. His death has placed the less visible side of ski-area infrastructure—inspection, repair and technical preparation—at the centre of public attention.

The incident is a reminder that the apparent simplicity of a cable car journey depends on a demanding industrial system behind it. Every lift ride rests on regular inspection, maintenance and controlled operation. When work is carried out around moving equipment, the difference between a routine task and a fatal event can depend on a single command, interlock or communication failure.

The acquittal of Munari and the 10-month sentence agreed with Consol provide the immediate judicial outcome. The broader safety question remains with the industry: how can cableway operators ensure that maintenance work is carried out with unambiguous control of every movement, clear separation between people and machinery, and safeguards that remain effective under pressure?

At Monterosa Ski, the legal case has produced two different outcomes for the two men prosecuted. For the mountain transport sector, the lasting significance will be measured not only by the verdicts, but by whether the circumstances of Rabaglio’s death lead to more robust procedures for the workers who maintain the lifts on which winter tourism depends.