Originally published at: Passengers step onto nightmare elevator that gets stuck, then plunges (caught on video) | Boing Boing
…
2 Likes
How is that even possible!?! I’m sure construction codes are at least a little different in China, but did they completely reengineer 100+ years of elevator design? I once had to repair a freight elevator that was one of the earliest designs and even it was on rails (long story, very illegal).
7 Likes
That sort of thing is not even supposed to be possible with modern elevators (at least in the western hemisphere).
6 Likes
Could also be a really old building. In 1990, I had to regularly visit a building that the elevator used a rope. Don’t know how it was allowed then, dunno if it’s still that way.
Needless to say, I always used the stairs.
8 Likes
Dennis Hopper was nowhere to be seen…
3 Likes
Very strange. If everything on the elevator fails (power to the motor, brakes etc.) the elevator cab will move up rapidly because the heavy counterweight on the other end of the cables drops, pulling the cab in the opposite direction. I suspect this is a faulty motor controller driving the elevator down.
7 Likes
Pretty certain it wasn’t. It might have been an old actuator pull, not really structural or involved with load bearing (I hope!). But even then the carriage should have been on rails. Most of the safety engineering was created before 1900.
I was just trying to locate some info about the elevator I was referring to above. I’m 90% certain that it was constructed before 1870 and the elevator was integral to the building. It was an iron foundry and there is was a spur of the freight train line that ran through the building. This was right next to the freight elevator so new castings could be brought down and loaded directly onto the train. Again, even having been built in 1870, it had rails, counterweights and brakes.
4 Likes
A little google, and the building opened in 1869, so hopefully well before 1900.
4 Likes
The building in China? Yeesh.
Eta: Aha. Got it.
No, the building I’m talking about here in the US. I’m not aware of any accidents with it, but I know people did a lot of jumping in it due to the amount of play it had.
2 Likes
I know what happened, I’ve seen it once while working. It is the most terrifying thing that can happen. The lift is falling upwards! (hence the people fly into the air when it hits the top). If it was falling down people would be violently thrown downwards, not up.
There could be several reasons (but not cable brake, then a lift falls down and the speed governor actuates), unfortunately when falling up most of the blocking protections (lifts run on rails and these protections grips the rails) are less effective. BTW it fall up because the counterweight is designed for 55% of the load, being this an Asian lift and based on the area of the lift, this is probably a 10/12 people lift… so it is severely under-loaded which makes it go faster very fast… also on the top there is usually no hydraulic brake…
2 Likes
Damn Covorite!
1 Like
… I was in an elevator that failed and fell approximately one storey into the basement
It was an old building, Victorian era maybe, and we weren’t in free fall, but it was jarring and unpleasant
1 Like
1 Like
So why would I want to watch that, exactly?
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
