A one-year old infant, out on a holiday with her parents, suddenly became an orphan after her parents fell to their death when the cable car they were all riding on fell 100 feet or 30 metres into the forested mountainside in the Alps.

The baby was found contained in a rucksack which most probably is the main reason which protected the infant from the worst of the impact.

Boarding at a Swiss Alps resort in Alp Baerlaui, police said investigations were now underway as to how the family was made to use the cable car reserved only for freight purposes. Just after it started, the car gave off a sudden jolt and poured empty all its three occupants down on the rocks below.

"The cable-car is not for passenger use. It is a freight vehicle that was being used on the day of the accident by an employee of the area," Florian Grossmann, spokesman for the local police, was quoted by the Daily Mail.

"We are investigating how they came to be aboard and why."

Both the 38-year-old Swiss father and 31-year-old Canadian mother died instantly.

Local police authorities in the mountainous region of Schwyz said the rucksack which carried the baby helped the infant survive as well as by the branches and bushes that reduced the speed of her fall.

She was heard whimpering before rescue personnel found her. Albeit with serious injurities, the baby girl is expected to survive.

"The rucksack cushioned the fall," a rescue spokesman said. "Otherwise she would be dead too."

Local hospital staff had nicknamed the one-year-old baby girl 'Eidelweiss,' after a flower that stays alive in harsh conditions.