A tense 24-hour mid-air emergency in the Dominican Republic’s northern tourist hub of Puerto Plata came to a safe conclusion on Monday, when two highly trained cable car rescue specialists successfully extracted 17 people stranded in a suspended funicular cabin. The trapped group, which matched the cabin’s full 17-person capacity of 16 passengers and one operator, had been stuck hanging over the mountain slope since Sunday, after an unexpected mechanical failure shut down the iconic tourist attraction.
The two rescuers, Amaro García and Michael Añasco, were specially called in from the capital city of Santo Domingo to lead the high-stakes operation. Both are part of a cohort of 32 Dominican rescue workers who completed advanced high-altitude rescue training for cable car emergencies in Colombia just last year. García, a corporal and second-in-command of the Metro and Cable Car Specialized Security Corps (Cesmet), said the team only deploys after on-site teams have exhausted efforts to restart the stalled cable system, as manual extractions carry significant inherent risk.
Using specialized climbing and rigging equipment designed for aerial rescue operations, the pair reached the suspended cabin on the Isabel de Torres Mountain funicular — better known as the Puerto Plata cable car — and safely lowered each passenger and the operator to the ground one by one. Once they arrived in Puerto Plata from Santo Domingo, the team integrated with local response units from the Emergency Operations Center to coordinate the rescue effort.
Local officials praised the team’s quick, calm execution of the dangerous mission. “This emergency personnel demonstrated great technical skill and a lot of courage in making use of their training,” said government spokesperson Homero Luis Lperalta in a statement following the successful rescue.
The specialized rescue unit, which falls under the administrative umbrella of the Santo Domingo Metro (the managing body of the Santo Domingo Cable Car), has been working to expand local response capacity across the Dominican Republic. As the number of funicular and cable car operations has grown in recent years to meet rising tourism demand, the unit has been training new cohorts of local rescue workers to serve as additional skilled responders across the country.
First opened in 1975, the Puerto Plata cable car is one of the destination’s most popular tourist attractions. The eight-minute scenic trip up and down Isabel de Torres Mountain draws thousands of visitors annually, who ride to the mountain’s summit for panoramic views of the northern coast and native tropical vegetation. The mechanical failure that caused Sunday’s incident was traced to a broken axle in the upper pulley system — an original component that had been in place since the cable car launched 48 years prior. The attraction is managed by an independent board of trustees, and it remains unclear how long inspections and repairs will keep the site closed to visitors.