Wilderness Search and Rescue volunteers, Western Cape EMS paramedics, and Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company staff conducted a cabin rescue exercise on Table Mountain on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, practising specialist techniques for high-angle evacuations. The drill tested a rarely used rescue method in which the cable car cabin serves as a platform for extracting injured or stranded people from steep terrain.
WSAR spokesperson David Nel said the technique is deployed only once or twice a year and demands precise rigging skills that rescuers must maintain through focused training. “This particular technique, where we’re using the cabin as a rescue platform, we use this once, maybe twice a year,” Nel told Eyewitness News. “It is much more demanding in terms of skill and currencies.”
Nel stressed that the small margin for error makes regular drills essential. “It has a very small margin for error in terms of its rigging,” he said. “So, these trainings are quite focused, technically speaking.”
WSAR has documented 150 cases over the past 26 years in which the Table Mountain cable car was used to assist with rescues, according to figures the organisation provided to EWN on 27 August 2026. The cableway allows rescuers, medics, and equipment to be moved rapidly onto the mountain, cutting response times in conditions where foot access would take hours.
The exercise follows one of the most significant operations in WSAR’s history. On 24 October 2024, a cableway fire forced the evacuation of 75 tourists down Platteklip Gorge, an operation News24 described as WSAR’s biggest rescue in more than 60 years. That incident underscored the cableway’s dual role as both a potential risk factor and an indispensable rescue asset.
Nel has previously acknowledged how central the cableway has become to mountain rescue operations. “Many people haven’t considered just how different rescue on Table Mountain would look without the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway,” he wrote in a post on the WSAR website in May 2026.
Table Mountain remains one of South Africa’s busiest sites for wilderness rescues, with incidents ranging from lost hikers to medical emergencies on remote trails. The cableway’s ability to bypass steep foot paths gives rescue teams a critical advantage when weather or terrain would otherwise slow a ground response.
The exact staffing levels, drill duration, and internal training schedule for Wednesday’s exercise have not been independently confirmed. CapeFlats.co.za will seek further operational details from WSAR and the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company and update this report once verified.