An elevator in a Chicago skyscraper fell 84 floors, requiring a dramatic rescue
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9b9IYqsb_U
Deviant is a pentester focused on physical sec. Not just elevators.
But in fact, an ever better version of the one you posted exist.
The non-sensored, +1 hour expanded version from the HOPE X con. Elevator Hacking: From the Pit To The Penthouse [Duration: 1h55min]
The professor gets to my table, presses a few buttons and everything works fine. He nods to himself. Then he starts yanking wires out and the lift kept going. He looks at me, shakes his head and says “safety”. I forgot to make the lift stop if anything unexpected happened :)
Thank goodness there was a safety system on this lift, even if it had to fall 84 floors for it to kick in.
It's not clear how fast they were falling; it may be that the brakes didn't kick in because the fall was slow.
Most likely the jolt was simply the rest of the cables catching the load of the cabin. If the brakes got engaged or the elevator ran into the buffer the elevator will not be aligned with the ground floor.
Glad to hear you got off with nothing more than a slight fright though.
I think this is very good advice for the US and western countries, where you can expect some technician/fire brigade to come and help. In the communist Eastern Europe of 3 decades ago, there were daily blackouts, and probably every single days a few hundred people got stuck in elevators because of the sudden loss of electricity. We all knew how to deal with the situation, it was part of life. A cable breaking was definitely unusual though. I never heard of it happening to anyone else.
If you're lucky the lift will have detected something wrong and gone into lockdown itself. If you're unlucky it'll start moving with your body halfway through the doorway. It's not incredibly likely to go wrong but the price when it does is too high to risk it.
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[1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8e26/a95a24569b284271a54397...
From the article: The malfunction had been caused by a snapped “hoist rope,” or elevator cable, Maloney said. Other cables were still attached, keeping the elevator from plummeting to the floor.
Source: documentary on the first elevators
However there is another risk of it flying up and slamming into the ceiling for most types of lifts. For that kind of malfunction there is often no safe guard. A lot of lifts are of the type where they use a large weight which is about half the weight of the maximum load capacity of the lift. This weight is used as a contra weight and hangs in the elevator shaft (so it goes down if the lift goes up). If the brakes in the engine on top of the lift shaft fail there is nothing stopping the contra weight and the lift will fly up.
This is a YouTube video of that happening: https://youtu.be/Ys0rDAxdd-g (warning its not graphic but obviously a disturbing thing to see)
That makes it simply a cost thing. Since most people don't know about this risk and there aren't many accidents there is simply too little incentive.
[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... (See Annex I , 3.2)
(In German, there's the word "klemmen" = to tuck, get stuck, get trapped, get caught; presumably it's a cognate. So, the above presumably is a Swedish word for "the risk of getting stuck and squeezed".)
The clack-clack-clack sound they reported was probably safety clamps attached to the rails. When the speed of the elevator exceeds some limit they start automatically breaking.
Otherwise, I couldn't have read the article.
On the other hand, sometimes it all goes wrong: https://youtu.be/VnvGwFegbC8
1) The engineer designed something that was not easily buildable. (The bridge had to be jacked 2 stories up along threaded rods that supported it, and nuts rotated up that distance)
2) The contractor modified the design in the shop drawings to make it more buildable, (split the threaded rod into two sections, with the lower half hanging from the upper walkway) but in doing so doubled the stress on a particular piece that itself was replaced by a less capable similar item. (box section vs welded C sections)
3) The Engineering firm signed off on the change to the shop drawings without realizing the significance of the changes.
I find it interesting that you assume they did not. The job of a structural engineer is to ensure exactly that.
When there was a balcony collapse in a foreign country I got interested and read the code where I live, the building regulations specify that a balcony or similar structure, which essentially hangs off the side of a building and so is unsupported at one side, must handle up to a certain load per square metre. Enough that a modest residential balcony can certainly hold two lovers, someone's spare bicycle and the decorative concrete flower beds they've put down to make it feel "outside". But what if instead of two lovers standing under the moonlight it's as many of the university rugby club as will physically fit? Ah, well then you're going to exceed the designed capacity and a code-compliant balcony might very well collapse.
All those tower blocks in England that are being retro-fitted because of the ones that burned down in London, their architects would have told you at the time they were definitely built to code, no extraordinary risk of fire. Then a bunch of people die in an out-of-control tower fire and - surprise - the politicians now claim the code meant you shouldn't ever have done that, and those towers were all built wrong but now they need to "clarify" the meaning. Sure.
Of course, what's common in my industry would obviously be fatal in other industries. I often tell my wife, "I don't have an unreasonable fear of heights. I have an unreasonable fear of engineers" :-) Still, I haven't died from having a bridge collapse under me yet, so I must be doing something right!
This roughly equates to 4-6 people per square meter.
It could have accelerated too fast, and the cables snapped only when it started to slow down, which it probably would have anyways for the remaining 10 floors. they may have only free fell one or two floors, if at all. Cable probably snapped just before they started to hear the clack clack clack
Safety features also can’t decelerate the cage too fast. If, say, the elevator fell from floor 70 to floor 40 before safety features kicked in, it makes sense to use most of the remaining space for deceleration.
Falling 84 floors isn't less dangerous if you end 10 stories above the ground than it is if you end on the ground.
The emergency brake had kicked in at the top floor, but the doors wouldn't open when misaligned like that. Most of the time I spent in there was the technicians (and, for some reason, they sent the police to talk to me) looking for me. I had thought I was on one of the lower floors, and that's what I told the person on the emergency phone, so they were looking for me in the wrong place.
The elevator was old enough that I guess it didn't have any mechanism for reporting its location, and may have even been a relay-controlled system, which explains why they couldn't find me. After they showed up, it took a fair bit of prying on both sides to get the doors to open. I was surprised when I left and found out that I had been on the top floor the whole time, as they didn't tell me until I was freed. Then I took the other elevator back down to the lobby with the technicians, showed my professor the card from the police officer and explained why I missed class.
The one thing I wonder while reading the article is how they managed to figure out where the elevator was if it was in a blind shaft - they couldn't just go from floor to floor listening like they did for me. I used to live in an apartment in at all building that shared a wall with a blind elevator shaft, and I didn't even realize it for a while because the walls were so thick that the shaft was silent.
Can't the technicians just open any of the outer lift doors and have a look?
“This is the second most important building in Chicago? And this is the third most important city in the United States?” he questioned.
By what metric is Chicago the third most important city in the United States? I'd argue that NYC and DC are the top two (not necessarily in that order) and either San Francisco or Los Angeles (or both) also rank above Chicago.
Thoughts?
I can't find the stat at the moment but I believe there's an abnormally high return rate for people born in the Chicago area to come back to it. It's even very cyclical where young people live in the city, then they move out to the suburbs, have kids who go to college somewhere like OSU or Michigan then come back and work in Chicago and the cycle repeats. Nowhere else really has such a clear cycle like Chicago does, and I think it's because of the way Chicago is viewed by people in the area. Don't get me wrong it's a solid city but in terms of cities in the US I'd want to live in it probably comes out to #6 or so. In importance, I'd agree with your assessment as well.
All of this to say that I think Chicagoans find some odd reasons to put themselves high up in importance. I've heard a lot about O'Hare being the air travel epicenter of the US where every connecting flight goes through, the (now fading) financial epicenter Chicago used to be, a top food scene, the list goes on. I think it has local importance and I think locals have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about others not viewing it as being so important.
Edit: It's unclear if this is a local or international tourist in this specific case. Curious what the perspective is for an international tourist on the criteria.
That said, I'm basically questioning an off-the-cuff quote made by a friend of someone who was in the elevator. The speaker should be forgiven for being imprecise…
There's no evidence for that anywhere, nor is this the author. This is a quote from a friend of someone in the elevator and there's no given criteria, so we can only speculate.
It goes the other way. Importance determines population. If the capital is not populous, that reflects the fact that the capital isn't especially important.
But assuming you're in a more or less steady state, that effect has already happened, so it's perfectly valid to just assume that importance and population are tightly correlated. The directionality doesn't really matter to the result.
Does it though? You still have provided no supporting arguments for that. People live in places for reasons beyond importance. In fact, "importance" really isn't a factor people consider when they decide to live somewhere at all really in my experience.
> and either San Francisco or Los Angeles (or both) also rank above Chicago
Wouldn't it be Sacramento in this case, as the capital but not most populous city? The most important city is a combination of multiple factors: size, economic or political power, and probably some more (like cultural).
The Bay Area ranks 6th in the U.S. GDP wise. Dallas Ft Worth and DC are both higher.
If you’re ranking cities by tourism I’d think Chicago would fall below SF or DC.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-most-visited-cities-...
here is importance not by population, but by GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_area...
I think this will turn into a pointless debate quickly unless someone nails down what defines the importance of a city. I don't personally think GDP is a defining factor. DC is a prime example against that.
For the record, I'm not putting Chicago far down on that list - it's probably around #5 (behind NYC, DC, SF, and LA). But I think this discussion came from the very casual assumption of someone to put Chicago #3 which I do think is interesting to see where that came from.
The backbone of San Francisco’s economy is tourism. If you find tourism important then I guess your list could make sense.
New York - huge center of mixed cultures, huge both population and economic output (larger than Chicago), and a big center of the fashion industry, art, etc.
DC - Capital with lots of political relevance, still good sized and has lots of other aspects that make up a city like good public transit
SF - The tech center of a world being increasingly run by tech, for better or worse
LA - Huge global entertainment hub, huge cultural mixing pot, huge GDP and population
I find this strong backlash interesting as I have no dog in this fight - I'm from a no-name suburb to a medium city in the south and am simply a lover of cities comparing what I have encountered.
whereas gdp and population are
a) easy to define and b) correlated with significance
There are tech companies in SF but it’s vastly dwarfed by FAANG in SV. You could argue SF is a suburb for SV but I’m not sure how that would make the city any more important or interesting.
Due to insane housing costs you’re more likely to meet a younger person born and raised in the Bay Area in some Midwest city (like Chicago) unless they’ve decided to live with their parents.
The interesting culture of SF is in rapid decline. So what you end up with is a dying culture in a city funded by tourism (also in decline because of chronic homlessness) inhabited by transplants who don’t work in the city.
Is that important? I don’t know? Maybe it’s an important model of how not to run a city.
This comment doesn't ring true in general.
My experience is that most Chicagoans usually correctly rate their city. Chicago has been historically perceived as one of the great American cities, with indisputably great achievements (Chicago architecture, economics, transportation, mercantilism, etc.). And today, people love living in Chicago because it's a major cultural center that has many things to offer over smaller U.S. metropolitan areas, while still being much more affordable than coastal cities.
But unless they are very young, immature and non-world-savvy, most Chicagoans usually also confess there are problems with crime, crooked politicians and (ever increasing Cook County) taxes. Chicago today feels like NYC in the late 80s, but with modern infrastructure.
Not that many Chicagoans will gush unreservedly about their city. Chicago is not the kind of city that invites unexamined boosterism.
In terms of cost, in my experience, it's in line with coastal cities overall besides SF/NYC, maybe a bit lower than Boston.
> Not that many Chicagoans will gush unreservedly about their city. Chicago is not the kind of city that invites unexamined boosterism.
I wouldn't say they gush, but I know a good deal of people from the Chicago area at this point and it's very much in my experience an underlying assumption set they hold.
Ah so you’ve never lived in Chicago then
I may not have lived there but I have spent a good deal of time in many cities. I have explored various neighborhoods in these cities (Chicago included), regularly use their public transit, looked at COL numbers and done apartment searching in them to see prices, etc.
More generally, it tends to be regarded as a much more global city than SF or DC. New York is clearly #1 as far as international importance, but Chicago generally places third behind LA in any serious ranking of U.S. cities based on economic and cultural importance.
Also, the 3rd most populous city in the U.S.
Metro area rankings by GDP are the following.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_ar...
But my ranking is irrelevant really. Most silly rankings like this put chicago around #3 based on population/GDP/transport/etc.
For me - it's one of maybe 3-4 cities in the entire US where you can live comfortably without a car - meaning there is at least semi-competent public transportation at a "World City" level. LA, SF, and DC don't qualify at all by that metric so I'm not sure how useful it is :)
I guess in my minds eye I put the "top 3" cities in the US as NYC, LA, Chicago in that order - but it's also based on somewhat dated and historical information.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-chicago-elevator-fall-2...
I had a cable slip on my once... doors open it went down until it bottomed out. (and faster than normal, but far from free-falling)
Cable slip is very unlikely (though not impossible). Something definitely went awry in that situation which is very rare.
Aeroplanes are at 0.05 deaths per billion km. There are around 30 deaths due to elevators in the US each year. So for elevators to be safer people would need to be traveling 600 billion km in elevators each year. The population of the US is around 300 million, so each person would need to average 1000km a year, or around 3km a day.
Even people in tall skyscrapers probably don't hit that number on too many days.
>There are around 30 deaths due to* elevators in the US each year*
I last looked at it many years ago so I don't have current sources, but the numbers presented by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated that around half the deaths (14/30 at that point) were those working near or with elevators, not the passengers. That is of course an important issue, but it's also a different one then in-use operational safety mechanisms, and I don't think airline rates cover on the ground maintenance deaths either. That stats I remember from around 5 years ago were that there were something like 900,000 elevators operating in the US and about 18 billion trips a year. So in terms of "get on the moving box, arrive safely" they still look pretty good.
All this is US centric granted, it wouldn't surprise me if there are countries where elevator deaths are much lower, though then again I'm sure there are places where maintenance is worse too. Aircraft are somewhat unique from a safety perspective in terms of not just themselves but the entire system built up around them worldwide.
Sure, but I decided it didn't really matter since I don't think that people in the US even average 100m in an elevator every day, so even if only one person died every year aeroplanes would still be safer.
The other option for "safest vehicle" I considered was spacecraft. Even though they have a high mortality-per-journey I thought that maybe they travelled so far that they would come out looking pretty good per-mile. But, as it turns out, the moon isn't far enough away.
At 117 deaths per billion journeys, only 256 million would be required, which would be fewer than one journey per person per annum. So lifts are much safer per journey.
For 30.8 deaths per billion hours it would be just under a billion hours needed (or 3.25 hours per person per year, ~0.5 minutes a day). I would imagine per minute this would put lifts and air travel at a similar risk per minute.
Wikipedia doesn't state if these are for general aviation or just commercial operations, which would skew the numbers considerably.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
So, my recommendations for elevator safety are: watch where you're going, and wait for help to arrive if there's an elevator malfunction.
Looking over this list[1], it's interesting how almost nobody in an elevator ever dies. The worst incidents tend to involve people or objects that are halfway into the elevator.
10,000 kg hitting at 400 km/s is equivalent to about the energy of 15 kg of TNT. The first WTC bombing was much more and the building withstood it.
Also I'd like to point out just how scummy this site is. The paywall offers a "Premium EU Ad-Free Subscription" with the following perk:
> No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking
But trying to buy it paints a whole different story:
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Assholes.