Elevator Plunges 80 Floors! (Chicago: live, cost, lawsuits)

[Ted Bear]

"I believed we were going to die": Chicago elevator plunges 84 floors


I used to ride the elevators....express to 78.....in the World Trade Center in NYC. Never a day went past that the thought about whether that thing, which rattled like a rail car, would let go and hit bottom at the speed of gravity. We all used to kid ourselves...could we jump, just before the bottom, and avoid the slam into the concrete bottom?


No you can't jump. No you can't figure out where you are and how close the bottom is, and no you won't live if that thing hits bottom. These people in Chicago apparently thought the same thing.

[prhill]

Originally Posted by Ted Bear

"I believed we were going to die": Chicago elevator plunges 84 floors


I used to ride the elevators....express to 78.....in the World Trade Center in NYC. Never a day went past that the thought about whether that thing, which rattled like a rail car, would let go and hit bottom at the speed of gravity. We all used to kid ourselves...could we jump, just before the bottom, and avoid the slam into the concrete bottom?


No you can't jump. No you can't figure out where you are and how close the bottom is, and no you won't live if that thing hits bottom. These people in Chicago apparently thought the same thing.

I have had nightmares where this would happen!

[Corvette Ministries]

Don't they have some sort of mechanical brake that would slow the car down the last 40-50 floors?

If not, maybe they should.

[sfcambridge]

What a terrifying thought.

They don't describe much of what it felt like in the elevator. Did it come to a sudden, traumatic halt? Did the passengers fall inside the elevator? The article makes it sound like they barely noticed anything wrong!

[anthonyforest]

There are safety measures in place, an automatic brake at the top of the shaft and one at the bottom with a shock absorber on the basement floor. The wife was in an elevator mishap while working at a hospital in 2003. Management had disregarded all of the workers' complaints about the elevator not working properly. My wife and five workers were entering the elevator when it violently lurched upward with the doors open, pinning a female coworker between the floors killing her instantly. Typical management fashion tried to blame the workers of doing something wrong. The ensuing lawsuits cost them millions of dollars, untold misery to the survivors and their families just to save a few dollar by not properly maintaining their equipment. The wife and I view all elevators with suspicion now.

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by Corvette Ministries

Don't they have some sort of mechanical brake that would slow the car down the last 40-50 floors?

They do have an automatic brake to prevent the car falling, I think that brake was the key to Otis’s patent and the subsequent widespread use of the modern elevator.

I wonder if this elevator in question actually “plunged” down as in free fall or if it just kind’a slid down, with the brake not fully engaged, know what I mean?

[pvande55]

Elevators in high rises are moved by 6 to 8 cables, each capable of supporting the cab. If one breaks the elevator, deprived of the counterweight of the cable, would start falling. I believe the brakes engage on high speed. Yes, there is a shock absorber at the bottom as well.