One year after the accident involving the Elevador da Glória in Lisbon on September 3, 2025, which caused 16 deaths and 24 injuries among people of 15 different nationalities, central questions regarding the disaster remain unresolved. According to the available reporting, three core issues stay open: the exact technical cause of the accident, the assignment of legal and disciplinary responsibilities, and the final cost of compensation for the 36 victims and their families. While the Carris public transport company prepares a new technological solution for the Elevador da Glória to function again, judicial and technical investigations are ongoing.
Investigation Status and Official Findings on the Crash
The technical investigation into the tragedy is led by the Gabinete de Prevenção e Investigação de Acidentes com Aeronaves e de Acidentes Ferroviários (GPIAAF). Published on October 20, 2025, the preliminary report identified maintenance issues and noted that the maintenance provider, MNTC – Serviços Técnicos de Engenharia, Lda., lacked an engineering body with specialized technical knowledge in funicular operations necessary to develop, update, and adapt maintenance actions to the reality of the operation.
Parallel to the technical inquiry, an independent criminal investigation is being conducted by the Ministério Público.
Maintenance Contracts and Oversight Responsibilities
Before the tragedy, MNTC held a maintenance contract signed in 2022 with a value of 995.515,20 euros, plus VAT, for a maximum period of 36 months, covering four historic equipment items: Elevador da Glória, Elevador da Bica, Elevador do Lavra, and Elevador de Santa Justa. The monthly retainer was 23.653,20 euros, plus VAT, for the four equipment items, with a specific contractual breakdown for the Elevador da Glória corresponding to about 5.913,30 euros per month, plus VAT, per equipment, or around 70.959,60 euros per year in the case of Glória. Following the accident, Carris revoked the contract with MNTC on November 4, 2025, two months after the accident, passing maintenance needs to be ensured by Carris’s internal team.
At the municipal level, the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa established a mission team a week after the tragedy to study the technological system for the future ascensor, integrating experts from the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC), the Ordem dos Engenheiros, and the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). Additionally, external technical inspection of all historic equipment was adjudicated to the Centro de Apoio Tecnológico à Indústria Metalomecânica (CATIM) for 12.600 euros, while Carris’s internal inquiry is being done by the Comissão de Inquérito de Acidente Grave (CIAG).
Did You Know? The Elevador da Glória maintenance contract signed by Carris in 2022 covered four historic equipment items: Elevador da Glória, Elevador da Bica, Elevador do Lavra, and Elevador de Santa Justa.
Compensation Claims and Insurance Payouts
Financial settlements for the 36 victims—comprising 16 deaths and 24 injured—are far from concluded. Fidelidade, the insurer of Carris, revealed to Lusa on August 27, 2026, that it had already directly supported or assumed responsibility for the reimbursement of about 2,3 million euros in expenses related to the accident. This value includes indemnities, but also funeral expenses, repatriations, consultations, treatments, hospitalizations, surgeries, rehabilitation, transports, and lost wages. The insurance coverage ranges up to 50 million euros after being triggered.
Out of the 16 deaths in the accident, only four compensation processes were concluded with agreement between the insurer and the families, mostly foreign tourists. Twelve processes regarding the mortal victims remain to be closed: seven are in negotiation, one followed to court, another is being treated as a work accident, and three do not yet allow a definitive proposal due to documental and juridical issues. Regarding the 24 injured, it has not yet been possible to definitively determine the indemnities, since it is necessary to await clinical stabilization and the evaluation of eventual sequelae. Thus, there are 36 victims in total and only the processes relative to four of the mortal victims are already concluded. One family of Ana Paula, one of the mortal victims, presented a judicial action in June 2026 against Carris, Fidelidade, and MNTC, claiming 1.050.000 euros including loss of life, suffering before death, moral damages of the husband and daughter, and income the family stopped receiving. None of the injury processes were definitively closed as of August 27.
Future Plans for the Elevador da Glória
On August 31, 2026, Carris presented the new plan for the Elevador da Glória, almost one year after the tragedy. According to Carris president Rui Lopo, the solution foresees the integral substitution of the system by a modern and certified solution, seeking to reconcile security, engineering, public space, and heritage preservation, and the equipment will be a new installation and not a reconstruction of the previous one, maintaining a similar configuration but using more resistant materials and ceasing to use wood in the original structure while maintaining the appearance of the Calçada da Glória over recent decades.
Carris plans to launch an international public concession design tender until the end of March 2027, respecting the historic identity of the Elevador da Glória while incorporating higher standards of security, reliability, accessibility, sustainability, and technological supervision. Carris foresees that the new ascensor will be inaugurated in 2029.
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