At around 3:13pm on the 3rd of February 1998, near the Italian resort town of Cavalese, a low-flying Unites States Marine Corp plane on a training exercise struck the cable of an aerial tramway, severing it and causing a fully-loaded gondola to fall to the ground. The incident resulted in the deaths of all 20 occupants of the gondola, and came to be known by locals as “The Massacre at Cermis”.