Investigators say an emergency brake system had been disabled before the crash, which killed 14.
Three people have been arrested in Italy over Sunday’s cable car accident that left 14 dead.
Investigators say the emergency brakes had been disabled and the three members of the operating company were aware.
According to a local transport official, the brakes’ failure meant the car was travelling at over 100km per hour (62 mph) when the cable broke.
The car plunged 20m (65ft) into the side of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.
The three suspects have been identified as the owner, director and chief of operations of the company that managed the cable car.
“The three detainees had known about the failure of the emergency brake system for weeks,” news agency Efe quoted prosecutor Olimpia Bossi as saying.
One official told Italian TV channel Rai 3 that the suspects had admitted disactivating the emergency brake following “malfunctions in the cable car”, which repair workers had been unable to fix, according to Ansa new agency.
Five families were on board the car when it crashed, including two children who died.
On Tuesday, an Italian health official said the sole survivor of the accident, five-year-old Israeli Eitan Biran, had begun waking up from a medically induced coma, although he remains in a critical condition.
According to reports, Eitan was protected from the impact by his father, who died along with the rest of the family in Sunday’s crash.
Initial reports said the towing cable failed at about 12:30 (10:30 GMT) as the gondola neared the end of its 20-minute journey to the top of the mountain from the resort town of Stresa. Nearby hikers heard a loud hiss before it crashed to the ground.
