this does not appear to be y2k related, but thought it was interesting enough to post

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpne09.htm

Elevator Cable Snaps in NY Building

NEW YORK (AP) -- An Empire State Building elevator with two people aboard plunged 40 stories before a safety system finally stopped the car on the fourth floor. The passengers were not seriously hurt.

``I thought I was going to die,'' Shameka Peterson said. ``It was going really, really fast.''

Ms. Peterson and Joe Masoraca, who work in different offices on the 44th floor, boarded the elevator Monday afternoon and pressed a button for the lobby.

``It just plunged,'' Ms. Peterson told the New York Post. ``It was like a bungee fall. It was terrifying.''

The elevator dropped about 400 feet before the safety system caught it and slowed it to a stop on the fourth floor. The elevator services the lobby and floors 41 through 55, so there was no way to exit. Masoraca called for help on the elevator telephone.

Maintenance workers rode up in an adjacent elevator, pried open an emergency hatch and guided the pair across a beam to safety.

Ms. Peterson was treated for neck and shoulder pain and released from a hospital Masoraca has made an appointment to see a doctor.

``I'm very tired, and I'm in pain,'' he said.

The elevator plunge was caused by a sheared compensating cable, which adjusts the weight of the car, building spokesman Howard Rubenstein said. The elevator passed an inspection May 19, he said.

All 64 elevators in the landmark have been scheduled for inspections this week.

The 102-story building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street opened in 1931. It handles millions of tourists each year and thousands of people work inside.

AP-NY-01-25-00 0645EST

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 25, 2000

Answers

This was on the local TV news last night. Clearly unrelated to computers or Y2K. But I'll bet there was a lot of gallows humor this morning when people rode the other 63 elevators up to their office.

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), January 25, 2000.

A definite "E-Ticket Ride"! People pay money for the privilege of soiling their shorts. Perhaps there is a money making opportunity here...

-- Chris Tisone (c_tisone@hotmail.com), January 25, 2000.

Aren't they supposed to have fail-safe mechanisms that are only UNlocked when the elevator is suspended by the cable?

It can't be an elevator cable problem. It's probably just an anomaly or something.

-- Sluggo (sluggo@your.head), January 25, 2000.

I certainly hope that the folks who are riding the 'equities' elevator have a 'safety' mechanism which will keep them from smacking into the ground floor. Figure a 90% drop will about do it.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 25, 2000.

Not Y2K,probably because Rubinstein has a very intense Maintenance Program going,he just lost his Schedule.

-- liberator (feeding@the trough.com), January 25, 2000.

This story caught my eye only for one reason, and not because of Y2K.

I remember back in the early 80's speaking to a technician for Otis Elevator. Just to make conversation, I asked him how common it is to have an elevator plunge to the bottom of the shaft just like you see in the movies.

He laughed, and said that in the history of elevators it had only happened once and that was in the Empire State Building a *long* time ago. Even then, he said, nobody was killed (although some were seriously injured). He said that because of the air being compressed underneath the car as it fell, it blew out all the doors one by one as it passed each floor, acting as a minor breaking mechanism. Enough to prevent fatalities anyway. He then went on to explain all the safety mechanisms in place now to prevent that kind of thing happening and that elevators were virtually foolproof.

Apparently not quite. "Funny", too that it was the same building.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), January 25, 2000.

Any Squirrel King sightings in the Big Apple lately?

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.Net), January 25, 2000.

I imagine the notion of a "disgruntled employee" has crossed the minds of some in the investigation...

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 25, 2000.

Very off-topic but a fascinating New York story: the one episode of a falling car per the elevator tech clearly refers to the little-known 1945 collision of a U.S. bomber with the Empire State Building. Reference: _The Sky Is Falling_ by Arthur Weingarten, copyright 1977. The picture section has a photo of "Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver. She had just started down from the 79th floor when one of the plane's engines severed her car's cables. She plunged 1,000 feet to the sub- basement." A later photo shows the elevator car, completely wrecked. "The force of the impact [with the bottom of the shaft] drove the safety mechanism through the floor of her car, demolishing it entirely. She was weightless for most of the 1,000 foot fall." Remarkably, although she had a "broken back and both legs, [she] made what her doctors described as a miraculous recovery in less than 8 months." She left New York for her native Arkansas (hey, who can blame her!) and now is a grandmother of 4.

Yours in interesting but off-topic history,

--Andre in southcentral Pennsylvania

-- Andre Weltman (72320.1066@compuserve.com), January 25, 2000.

Andre,

Another book about that bomber collision, titled "The Day The Sky Fell", came out several years ago -- about 1993-4 IIRC. It starts off with a narrative of the building's construction, then details what lead up to the collision and its aftermath, also with photos.

>The little-known 1945 collision of a U.S. bomber with the Empire State Building.

Trivia: (1) The bomber was a B-25, the type Gen. Billy Mitchell had used in his famous air raid on Tokyo a couple of years earlier.

(2) The collision was only the secondary headline in New York papers that day. The leadoff story was the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, several hours earlier that same day.

>"Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver. She had just started down from the 79th floor when one of the plane's engines severed her car's cables. She plunged 1,000 feet to the sub- basement." A later photo shows the elevator car, completely wrecked. "The force of the impact [with the bottom of the shaft] drove the safety mechanism through the floor of her car, demolishing it entirely. She was weightless for most of the 1,000 foot fall."

Safety brake effectiveness was hampered by the distortion of elevator rail position and shape because of the aircraft engine'a punch through the shaft.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.