Elevator lore
 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all

Yet another reason to be thankful I don't live in a big city ... elevators.

B

Bot,,, you come up with the neatest $hit. :D

Thanks, Pete. I read it and then thought that lots of folks here would enjoy it, too.

B

Thanks Bot -

For me, that was interesting.

I hate the things, they scare me way too much...

the video is up on youtube.

Goddamn deathtraps. When I worked in the City I was trapped in one for 20 LONG MINUTES after a power spike blew a breaker or something.

Than GOD I just had 4 shots of Drambuie or I would have had one f*cked up massive anxiety attack.

Gosh, I never even thought of something like THAT happening. Thanks a lot, Bot! Now I have one MORE thing to worry about. Actually, I have thought about getting stuck in one recently. Fortunately, I have very little occassion to be in very tall buildings.

I thought this was going to be a story about love blooming in an elevator. About a man and a woman going to work each day at the same time in the same car a chance meeting I think not. Day in and day out they would drink in with all five senses this other person they were riding with. Never a word was spoken as it became clearer with each encounter one day something would happen and it did thanks to a grid glitch in the power supply. They were in the elevator by themselves, just the tow of them this day when there was a jolt, and the car stopped, lights flickered on then off again.
Not sure what to do, they introduced themselves getting closer to each other as if to use each other to quell their fear and panic. They embrassed and kissed the longest kiss ever......the car started up again a sigh could be felt and as the doors opened they parted company.

Not bad for just making that up eigh?

You been reading Cavafy again?

If I inserted anything Cavafyesque in there it would be banned.

Well, it WAS very poetic, whatever inspired it. You have a way with words . . .

Nice one Mistress…

I was thinking of some blood filled story where someone left a gust-lock on or something…..

Not funny. Remember the Beech that augered-in at Hobby a few years back? A friend's uncle was in the back seat...what happened? Amongst many other stupid moves, the pilot left the control lock in place on the yoke.

"Sigh . . . " Another elevator thread that has degenerated into yet another aviation discussion . . . .

LOL :D

In that case...I'll stop here and not address Randy's post....

Sorry...:o

BTW – NOTHING “degenerates” into anything aviation related. Damn it.

Hee hee hee . . . . :D. So I've been told.

Ignore Dee8go- please explain Randy's post...i thought that was number one on pre-inspection or do all the newbies pay attention at first.

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Ok. But it will have to wait a bit.
Just got a call from a friend, and now need to get my butt off the ground toot sweet.

Cow chase'n time !!!:D

It happened to me...
 

Back in 2000 I was going to see a head hunter in NYC. The office was on the 40th floor in an older building near Times SQ. I had the interview then go into an express elevator for the ride down with two women.
We got past all the floors the car would open at and were between openings whenthe elevator stopped running. At first we thought nothing much of this, but then an hour past and we were still stuck. We had been able to contact the lobby via the intercomand they told us that all the elevators had gone out! Well the FDNY Rescue 1 guys showed up and tried to get the car to move. One was shouting about releasing the emergency brake when the older woman, Joan, started screaming at him to leave that G-D emergency brake alone! What they ended up doing was sledgehammering an opening in the shaft as close to us as possible. We then had to climb out as the opening was about six feet above the car, leaving us a small gap to crawl through.

When we came out, we were interviewed by the local news. It turns out that we were in there for almost four hours!

I still keep in touch with Joan, who worked for the head hunter and got me a nice job! If only we had been alone all that time... She also moved her office to the second floor!

On a sad note, the guys who rescued us were among the ones who ran into the Twin Towers a year later...

OK. Sorry for the major hijack Bot. But the little lady asked.....

DATE & SITE: 5/12 - Houston, Texas
AIRCRAFT & REGISTRATION: Beech BE-95-B55, N4005A
CIRCUMSTANCES: Destroyed on impact with terrain after takeoff/VMC/D
DEATHS & INJURIES: 6 - Fatal
NTSB ID#: FTW00FA146
PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS2: Inadequate pre-flight preparation/apparent failure to remove control lock and use pre-takeoff checklist/apparent failure to perform freedom of movement of flight controls before takeoff.

Per NTSB DMS: FTW00FA146
The pilot did not perform an aircraft runup and proceeded to takeoff. Numerous witnesses observed the airplane pitch up to a 70 to 80-degree nose high attitude upon liftoff. The witnesses then observed the nose of the airplane momentarily pitch nose down slightly and immediately pitch nose high again. They then reported observing the airplane roll to the left and impact the ground in a nose low, left wing low attitude. Shortly after impacting the ground, a fire erupted. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the pilot had failed to remove the control lock pin from the control column. A safety alert, service instruction, and mandatory service bulletin were issued by the aircraft manufacturer, which dealt with control lock awareness and a control lock modification. The pilot/aircraft owner did not comply with the service instruction and mandatory service bulletin, nor did he have the original control lock assembly installed. A conservative weight and balance computation indicated that the pilot loaded the airplane beyond the airplane's certificated maximum gross weight and aft center of gravity limitations. An autopsy of the pilot revealed that he had suffered from an 'acute myocardial infarct' prior to the airplane impacting the ground.
I am sorry about the loss of life in this incident. Especially that of those who innocently trusted this pilots abilities.

No, Randy. There is nothing funny about this incident.

However - Not moving the control yoke in an aircraft in such a manner as to determine/detect that the control system is functional/locked, sometime prior to takeoff, is absolutely incomprehensible to me.

Now…back to our regularly scheduled program.


I hate being in elevators, with one exception….
DJ hitting the stop button and asking “Nutmeg?” with that cute little grin on her face.



Ok…I feel better now about the hijack.

Did you catch them cows, WVO?

Not catch.
More like herd from the air with the 530.

Some yahoo ran through a friends fence last night and about 40 head were headed west on 455 near Slidell. :eek:

All back home now, safe and sound.

I did make sure they got their exercise for the day.:D

Here's a good one. MSNBC is running with it. Perfect music, too.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

Not bad, Mistress!

It is definately the basis for a short story!

Tom W

I just switched Elevator companies for the maintenance contract on my building.

The company I had had been bought and the service had deteriorated until I almost felt I knew more about the elevator than the guys they sent out to fix it. The last month and a half of their service the elevator went down about 20 times. I was so unhappy.

So I signed up with a new company Amco, and am hoping for the best.

As luck would have it the old company kept doing repairs up til the last day, even coming back a few days after their contract expired to put on some parts that had not come in in time and......

The elevator has been trouble free for a month.

They got lucky and fixed it after two months of having a crew drive up from Indianapolis every other day to guess at the problem.

I'll keep you posted on the new company.

BTW, my elevator was put in in 1951 and it is still mostly all original except for replacing wear parts. Although it has been down many times in the last eight years folks only have been stuck in it twice and then only for short periods of time. It has never fallen and I feel totally safe riding it up and down.

Tom W

Well, the life of an aviator sounds a lot more interesting than the life of a salesman . . . :D

And I'm sure her oral arguments aren't bad either. :D:D

Well, I guess “interesting” is a good word for it.
I can assure you though, that it hasn’t been all fun and adventure.

Fun and adventure have quite often been superceded by near death experiences and long boring flights far from home.

Along with co-piloting guys who can't land IFR...anything ever come of that episode?

Still on the books, I guess. But, I’m done with it.

He was recommended for another phys. Mainly vision tests I’d venture to say. They did find his experience with night IFR approaches in type to be pretty much all in the simulators. (Like that’s a big surprise.)

The company he was to fly for had me out for some questions and opinions. I kept both brief. Last I heard he was still on staff, but I got the impression it wasn’t as Chief Pilot.