{"id":402109,"date":"2025-09-06T07:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T07:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/402109\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T07:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T07:51:11","slug":"british-couple-killed-in-lisbon-funicular-crash-named-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/402109\/","title":{"rendered":"British couple killed in Lisbon funicular crash named | Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British couple killed in Lisbon after a funicular streetcar derailed on Wednesday<\/a> have been named as Kayleigh Smith and William Nelson.<\/p>\n

Smith, 36, and Nelson, 44, died alongside 14 other people after the Elevador da Gl\u00f3ria hurtled down a hill and careered into a building.<\/p>\n

Smith, from Macclesfield in Cheshire, graduated from the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester, where Nelson worked as a theatre director. The identity of the third British victim has yet to be disclosed by authorities.<\/p>\n

The accident, described by Portugal\u2019s prime minister, Lu\u00eds Montenegro, as \u201cone of the biggest tragedies in our recent history\u201d, also left 21 people injured, five of whom are in a serious condition.<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s prime minister, Lu\u00eds Montenegro, called the accident \u2018one of the biggest tragedies in our recent history\u2019. Photograph: Armando Fran\u00e7a\/AP<\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday morning<\/a>, police said the accident had killed five Portuguese citizens, three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians, one American, one Ukrainian, one Swiss citizen and one French person.<\/p>\n

Police said a German citizen thought to have died in the crash had been located alive in a hospital. Local media had reported that a German father had died and a mother was seriously hurt while their three-year-old child suffered minor injuries.<\/p>\n

Hours before the crash, Smith posted pictures on Instagram of the couple\u2019s first day in Lisbon with the caption: \u201cChurches and castles, tiles and trams.\u201d<\/p>\n

MADS Theatre in Macclesfield posted a tribute on Friday night saying: \u201cIt is with great sadness that we must acknowledge the death of Kayleigh Smith and her partner Will Nelson in the Lisbon funicular tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cKayleigh was a valued member of our society and made considerable contributions both to MADS and to drama in the North West. It is indeed a sad loss to all of us at the theatre.<\/p>\n

Map showing location in Lisbon of the funicular<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cKayleigh was an award-winning director and an award-nominated actress. She also undertook multiple crew and front-of-house roles at MADS. She was a past vice-chair, membership secretary and head of tech, but above all that, she was a dear friend to many and will be greatly missed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wish to send our deepest condolences to both families, and to respect their privacy at this sad time. Our thoughts are with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The German foreign ministry said at least three German nationals were in hospital. The injured also include Spanish, Israeli, Portuguese, Brazilian, Italian and French citizens, according to the executive director of Portugal\u2019s national health service, \u00c1lvaro Santos Almeida.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Headlines Europe<\/p>\n

A digest of the morning’s main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Jorge Gon\u00e7alves Marques, who worked as the brake guard on the funicular, was among the fatalities, along with Pedro Manuel Alves Trindade, a former volleyball referee.<\/p>\n

The Portuguese transport union Sitra said: \u201cWe send our condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the accident and wish them a speedy recovery as well as the best recovery to the others injured in the accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marques was a \u201cdedicated, kind and happy professional, always willing to contribute to the greater good\u201d, according to his employer, Carris, which runs the funicular.<\/p>\n

Investigators have not found any evidence of sabotage, leaving mechanical failures or maintenance issues among the possible causes.<\/p>\n

The Gl\u00f3ria line carries about 3 million people annually. Its two cars, each capable of carrying about 40 people, are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable, with traction provided by electric motors on the cars.<\/p>\n

A No 10 spokesperson said: \u201cThe prime minister is deeply saddened to hear that three British nationals have died in the funicular crash in Lisbon. His thoughts are with their families and those affected by this terrible incident. We stand united with Portugal during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British couple killed in Lisbon after a funicular streetcar derailed on Wednesday have been named as Kayleigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-402109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115156266785051489","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}