Editing Yan Lift (section)

==Controversies and accidents==
Despite questions about safety, Yan managed to sell a total of 31 high-speed quads in the United States and Canada.  Many of the lifts have since been retrofitted by companies such as [[Poma]] and [[Doppelmayr (North America)|Doppelmayr]]. A controversial figure, Yanek Kunczynksi was a Polish immigrant and figurehead of the company. He brought experience from French chair lift making company, [[Poma]] to his American company: Lift Engineering. He was known for taking away what he deemed as unnecessary parts and substituting certain equipment for others, examples of this include replacing aluminum towers for steel ones and swapping rubber rings for steel coils.<ref name=":0" /> Many blame him for the accidents, though he claims that bad maintenance are the culprits for the lift failures.<ref name=":0" />

Yan high speed lifts were notorious for their grip slippage and sometimes required hours of running in the morning to realign the chairs following slippage over night. This led to nicknames such as "Yankee Slipper" a play on the lifts actual name "Yankee Clipper" now known as the Grand Summit Express at [[Mount Snow]], [[Vermont]].

===Keystone, Colorado, accident (1985)===
Potential problems with Yan lifts began to surface as early as December 14, 1985, when the upper bullwheel on the Teller lift at [[Keystone Resort|Keystone Ski Resort]] in Colorado disconnected from the main gearbox shaft. The lift was unique in its design as there was no support underneath the bullwheel. Lift Engineering had explained when the lift first opened the year before that a support beam underneath was not necessary. They claimed the pressure of the system along with the welds would keep the bullwheel in place.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Brad |title=Over 30 years ago, Keystone lift accident left 2 dead, 49 injured (Summit Daily archive) |url=https://www.summitdaily.com/news/keystone-lift-accident-was-25-years-ago-this-week/ |access-date=February 27, 2022 |website=www.summitdaily.com |date=December 20, 2016 |language=en-US}}</ref> Faulty welding would be blamed for the accident.<ref name='wsj-1997-01-16'>{{cite news | title= Faulty Weld Is Blamed For Ski Lift Accident | date=December 18, 1985 | url =https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E00E7DB153BF93BA25751C1A963948260 | work =[[The New York Times]] | access-date = February 29, 2008 }}</ref> Two people were killed and 47 injured.<ref>{{cite news | first= Brad | last= Johnson| title= Keystone lift accident was 25 years ago this week | date=December 14, 2010 | url =http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20101215/NEWS/101219899 | work =[[Summit Daily]] | access-date = March 22, 2015}}</ref>  The Teller lift, and its twin lift, Santiago, were two triple chairlifts constructed in 1984 as part of Keystone's North Peak expansion. Teller was rebuilt by Yan and renamed the Ruby lift, free of charge. Santiago was replaced by a [[Doppelmayr (North America)|Doppelmayr]] high speed quad in 1998 and relocated to [[Big Sky, Montana]], while Ruby was replaced by a [[Poma]] high speed six pack in 2000.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

During the late 1980s, the [[Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board]] began to question the safety of Yan's lifts. They learned that Kunczynski, in his drive to build affordable ski lifts, regularly sent steel parts to be welded together in [[ski area]] parking lots.<ref name='wsj-1997-01-16'/> The Board alleged that Kunczynski's lifts were unsafe. The ski industry blasted the Board and continued to install Yan lifts.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

=== Sierra Ski Ranch, (Currently Known As: [[Sierra-at-Tahoe|Sierra-At-Tahoe]]) California, accident (1993) ===
On April 4, 1993, a 9-year old boy was killed and another child injured when loose bolts and a subsequent deraillment caused two chairs to stack up on Sierra Ski Ranch’s Slingshot lift.  The same lift had sent an empty chair to the ground two months prior when a grip failed.  Lift Engineering settled a wrongful-death suit after the accident for $1.9 million. Sierra Ski Ranch’s marketing director would later state, “we found they just didn’t withstand the test of time” when the company committed $6 million to replace its three Yan detachables in 1996.<ref name=":1" />

===Whistler, British Columbia, accident (1995)===
Yan detachable lifts were subject to a series of accidents, most notably the Quicksilver lift at [[Whistler Blackcomb|Whistler Mountain]] in British Columbia, Canada. The Quicksilver accident killed two and injured eight on December 23, 1995.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.geog.uvic.ca/dept2/undergrad/honours/nixon_e.PDF |title=Disaster and Emergency Management: The Quicksilver Chairlift Incident |last=Nixon |first=Emily |publisher=[[University of Victoria]], Geography Department |date=April 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210447/http://www.geog.uvic.ca/dept2/undergrad/honours/nixon_e.PDF |archive-date=April 8, 2008 |access-date=March 17, 2015 }}</ref>  The accident occurred when the emergency stop was used repeatedly.  A chair started sliding downhill and struck the next chair which got stuck on a tower. This continued several times before a total of four chairs fell.<ref>{{cite news | first=Larry | last=Pyn | title=Minimizing the risks on B.C.'s ski lifts | date=February 9, 2008 | publisher=[[CanWest Global Communications|Canwest Interactive]] | url=http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=60e7f2b3-fad4-4b5e-ab6d-85b4248c69f6&k=68164&p=2 | work =[[The Vancouver Sun]] | access-date = February 29, 2008 }}</ref> The main problems with the Yan high-speed lifts were the chair grips.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}} These were designed so that in order to stay connected to the cable, the chair had to be subject to gravity. The Yan grips, unlike most operating today, did not have high-tension coil springs, but rather rubber "marshmallow" springs that exerted much less force on the cable. The repeated emergency brake application was enough to shake the chairs free of the cable. The majority of government safety inspectors failed to detect these problems.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}

The Quicksilver chairlift, which served the Whistler Creekside base area, was replaced by the Creekside Gondola in 1997, built by [[Poma]].{{citation needed|date=June 2016}}