The West Kelowna resort where four people were injured in a chairlift accident Saturday morning was previously fined for failing to address a safety hazard.

The B.C. Safety Authority confirmed it forced Crystal Mountain Ski Resort to pay $8,000 in 2013 for not complying with an order relating to its lifts.

“An investigation identified regulated equipment operated in a manner that created an unsafe condition,” the authority told CTV News in a statement. “The duty holder was ordered to submit a training plan in order to promote safe operation of the equipment.”

Crystal Mountain did not follow up, and was the only ski resort fined last year.

It’s now had its operating licence suspended while the Safety Authority investigates last weekend’s incident, which saw three chairs crash to the ground.

Two ski patrollers, a ski instructor and a skier were all injured and taken to Kelowna General Hospital, two in critical condition.

Mike Morin, general manager of the hill, said an empty chairlift was swinging and struck a lift tower around 11 a.m., causing it and the occupied chairs in front of and behind it to plummet.

“It wasn’t windy. I’m sure our lift inspector, the inspection branch will be looking into that to find out why this chair would’ve been swinging,” Morin said Sunday. “This is an extremely rare circumstance; in the past 20 years that I’ve been here I have never seen this.”

Morin said the double chair has been in operation since 1967, but an incident like this has never occurred before.

Paul Gervais was in a chairlift with his son when the others started falling. Though the family’s lift stayed in the air, the plastic seat cracked and fell out from under them.

Gervais said he managed to hold on to his son with one hand while grasping the dangling chair for a grueling half hour.

“[My son] was very brave. He didn’t cry once. He was saying, ‘Dad, I’m falling. I’m gonna fall.’” Gervais said.

“I’m looking up at the cable and I’m thinking, ‘How are these things built? Is this whole thing gonna fall? After 44 years am I going out on a broken chairlift?’”

The father managed to escape with only bruises and sore muscles.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Peter Grainger