What Causes Elevators to Fail?

Elevators are generally safe. It took some time to arrive at all the safety codes we have today, but now in the U.S., elevator passengers take about 20.6 billion trips a year without incident. That works out to roughly five people per trip, traveling smoothly and uneventfully, across nearly 900,000 elevators currently in operation nationwide.

That said, elevator accidents do still happen. The roughly 28 deaths and 10,200 injuries recorded in the U.S. each year are outside the norm, and more than half are work-related elevator accidents. For everyday passengers and elevator workers alike, each accident was a knowable and preventable one. Understanding why elevators fail, and who bears responsibility when they do, is useful for anyone who lives or works in a building with one.

This article will trace how modern elevators became far safer than their precursors, walk through why there are still failures today, and explain what the law and industry standards require of the companies responsible for keeping elevators safe.

How Elevators Work: A History & Overview

The rickety apartment elevator with a collapsible accordion gate may be the image that comes to mind when people think of early elevators, but the concept of mechanically lifting people and goods is far older than the industrial era. Archimedes is credited with designing an early version around 236 B.C., using ropes, a drum, a revolving cylinder, and manpower. Later versions used pulleys and were eventually used beneath the Coliseum to lift animals, including lions and bears, up to the arena floor.

The first elevator to be widely recognized as a true passenger elevator arrived in 1743, near Versailles. Manual operators worked pulleys and ropes to move what became known as “The Flying Chair”, carrying King Louis XV between the first and second stories of his quarters.

By the mid-1800s, steam and water pressure systems had replaced pure manpower, and cable and hydraulic systems were both in use. Hydraulic systems had a key limitation: the higher the elevator needed to travel, the deeper the pit beneath it had to be dug, in order to accommodate the rising piston. Cable systems were more practical for tall buildings, and they became the dominant technology.

In those early cable-system days, however, if a cable snapped, the elevator car would plummet. There were no backup systems. Falls were a real danger, not a hypothetical one.

That changed in 1854, when Elisha Graves Otis demonstrated his improved elevator safety system at the New York World’s Fair. His invention used a ratchet-style safety brake that would automatically engage and stop a falling car if its cable broke. Three years later, E.V. Haughwout and Company, a New York department store, became the first commercial building to install this significantly safer type of passenger elevator. The name Otis appears on elevator panels across the world to this day.

In 1887, inventor Alexander Miles added another layer of protection, patenting a mechanism for elevator and shaft doors that opened and closed automatically. This eliminated the dangerous situation in which a manual operator could leave an elevator or shaft door open, exposing people to the risk of falling down the shaft.

These two innovations, automatic safety brakes and interlocked shaft doors, form the structural foundation of modern elevator safety. Everything that has followed was built on them.

How Modern Elevators Are Built for Safety

Today, a passenger elevator is a system of interdependent components, each designed with failure modes in mind.

The main elements include:

• Elevator car and hoistway: The car is the cab that passengers ride in. The hoistway, also called the shaft, is the vertical enclosure that the elevator travels through. The hoistway contains guide rails, which keep the car from swaying, and buffer systems at the bottom that absorb impact if a car descends too far.
• Cables, counterweights, and the drive machine: In traction elevators (the most common type in commercial buildings), steel wire ropes attach the car to a counterweight. The counterweight offsets most of the car’s weight so that the drive machine—a motor and pulley system at the top of the shaft—only has to manage the difference. This makes traction elevators highly energy-efficient, allowing them to operate at significant heights.
• The governor and safety brakes: If a traction elevator moves faster than it should, a speed governor triggers the car’s safety brakes, which clamp onto the guide rails and bring the car to a stop.
• Door interlocks: Each hoistway door is mechanically locked and can only open when the elevator car is present at that floor, within a precisely defined “unlocking zone.” This is the interlock system that prevents elevator doors from opening onto an empty shaft. It is one of the most critical safety mechanisms in the entire system, and one of the most consequential if it fails.
• The control system: Modern elevators use computerized control systems to manage motor speed, door operation, floor positioning, and emergency responses. These systems communicate with the safety devices throughout the elevator and shaft.

In buildings that don’t require high-speed or high-rise operation, hydraulic elevators are common. These use a fluid-driven piston to push the car upward. They are generally limited in the height they can serve, and they require periodic inspections of hydraulic lines and oil levels, as leaks can cause slow or sudden descent.

What Causes Elevators to Fail Today

Despite extensive safety infrastructure, elevators can and do fail. The causes generally fall into several overlapping categories.

Mechanical Failures

Cables and wire ropes wear over time, and they must be inspected and replaced before they become a hazard. Pulleys, sheaves, and brakes can wear down. Counterweights, if improperly maintained or adjusted, can become unbalanced. In hydraulic elevators, seals and hydraulic lines can develop leaks, causing a car to descend slowly, or, if the failure is severe, more rapidly.

Most mechanical failures do not occur without warning. They develop over time, and routine inspection is designed to catch them before they become dangerous.

Electrical & Control System Failures

Elevator control systems are complex, and faulty or improper wiring has been a documented cause of deaths. One of the more dangerous failure modes occurs when improper controller wiring allows the elevator car to continue moving even after something—or someone—is caught between the car and the shaft.

In 2002, in New Jersey, two sisters, just 6 and 7 years old, were killed when a residential elevator’s safety features had been disabled, which meant the elevator was able to move up while both girls had their heads sticking out past the gate.

OSHA issued a specific Safety and Health Information Bulletin on this hazard after a fatal incident in Houston in 2003, in which a hospital employee was killed when the elevator doors trapped him as he was trying to enter the elevator, and the car did not stop despite the obstruction. Investigations found that faulty wiring was the reason that the elevator car failed to stop when an obstruction is detected. This tragic incident was not only an electrical failure, but was specifically a type of interlock failure as well.

Door & Interlock Failures

Door and interlock failures are among the most consistently dangerous modes of failure, for both passengers and workers. The interlock is what keeps the elevator car from moving while the elevator doors are open. In a 1997 incident involving this type of failure, a four-year-old girl in Chicago was killed when she was following her mother off an elevator in a residential building. Other children pressed the elevator call button, and the elevator ascended even though she was in the doorway. She got caught between the floors and the elevator car.

Another deadly scenario occurs when elevator doors open at a floor where the car is not present. This should be physically impossible when interlocks are functioning. But interlocks are systems that can wear out or malfunction. When they do, and no one has taken the elevator out of service or posted a warning, the result can be fatal.

One of the more common deadly hazards, that of falling into an elevator shaft, may happen if someone pushes the call button and the doors open even though the elevator car has not reached the floor. Regular inspections are required to make sure interlock systems, which prevent this type of incident, are in working order. If an issue is detected, the elevator must be disabled immediately, with warning tape in place until repairs can be made.

Misleveling

Misleveling occurs when an elevator car stops above or below the level of the floor it is serving, creating a step between the cab floor and the building door. This gap is often just a few inches, easy enough for most adults to navigate without a second thought, but it can be a serious tripping hazard for elderly passengers or young children. The 2001 death of an 88-year-old woman illustrates how quickly this kind of incident can become fatal. The woman fractured her pelvis by stepping off a misleveled elevator at a medical clinic in Edina, Minnesota, and she later died of complications from that injury.

Maintenance Failures & Deferred Repairs

Elevator failures aren’t often sudden; they are usually the end result of a series of smaller failures to act. Inspections that identified problems but produced no follow-through. Parts that were worn but not replaced. Service intervals that were skipped or shortened. Repair work performed incompletely, or by someone without appropriate qualifications.

Age & Modernization Gaps

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) A17 standards govern existing elevators, and it is intended to serve as a basis for retroactive safety improvements. This now 619-page guide was originally developed in 1921 to create a federal standard that would could align states and cities. Even with this national standard now in place, older elevators may operate on legacy control systems that predate modern safety requirements, and building owners don’t always prioritize or budget for bringing these elevators into compliance.

Recall & Defect Notification Gaps

Elevators and elevator parts are not subject to federal accident inspections or mandatory public product recalls the way consumer products are. When a defect is identified, manufacturers are required to notify building owners by mail, but there are no public announcements and no press coverage unless and until an accident occurs. Building owners who don’t act promptly on manufacturer notifications put passengers at serious risk.

Inspection & Certification Requirements

The ASME A17 series of standards provides the national foundation for elevator safety across the United States and Canada. More recent updates to this long-standing body of work include safety codes that address cybersecurity, flood protection, seismic requirements, emergency communication for trapped passengers that the hearing impaired can use, etc.

These standards govern design, construction, installation, maintenance, and inspection of elevators and related equipment. They are intended to be used by architects, engineers, contractors, and building owners. Most states have adopted the A17 codes in full or in part, though the pace of adoption varies.

Under these standards, key inspection requirements include:

• Annual inspections by a qualified inspector, of structural components, electrical systems, safety devices, door operation, and leveling accuracy.
• Load and safety device testing to ensure that the governor can still prevent runaway movement.
• Independent inspections by inspectors who do not work for the company that also maintains and repairs the elevator.
• Emergency evacuation readiness is expected of building owners and managers. There needs to be a designated, trained point person on site who is capable of coordinating elevator evacuations and working with emergency responders as needed.

In most jurisdictions, a current certificate of operation is required to operate an elevator legally. But that certificate only reflects the conditions at the time of the last inspection. A certificate does not mean that things haven’t changed or degraded since.

Who Is Responsible When an Elevator Accidents Happen

Elevator accidents frequently involve more than one party whose conduct contributed to the outcome. Knowing who bears responsibility and why matters both for accountability and for anyone who has been injured.

Building Owners & Property Managers

Building owners have a legal duty to maintain their elevators in a reasonably safe condition. That duty includes scheduling and documenting inspections, providing prompt maintenance and repairs as needed, and taking any malfunctioning elevator out of service until it is repaired. When a building owner knows about a problem and fails to act, that failure can become the basis of liability if a passenger or worker is injured in an elevator accident.

Elevator Maintenance & Service Companies

Most building owners contract elevator service companies for routine maintenance and repairs. These companies take on a duty to perform that work competently, to identify hazards, and to report issues to the building owner. A service company that misses a known defect during an inspection, performs an incomplete repairs, or sends an unqualified worker to perform specialized work can be held liable for resulting accidents. Elevator service contractors are typically required to hold a state or municipal contractor license, carry insurance, and employ licensed mechanics.

Elevator Manufacturers

When a design or manufacturing defect contributes to an elevator accident, manufacturers can bear liability, even when the elevator was properly installed and maintained. Product liability claims like these can stem from brake system failures, defective door detectors, hydraulic systems that didn’t stop safely, etc. Manufacturers have the duty to notify building owners of any known defects by mail, and the building owner must act on it.

Contractors During Construction & Modernization

During new construction and upgrade projects, the open elevator shafts can pose hazards not just to elevator workers, but also to every other trade on a job site, plus any passersby. General contractors and subcontractors share responsibility for ensuring that open shafts are adequately guarded, that fall protection is in place, and that only authorized and qualified personnel can access the shaft. Construction workers and elevator mechanics account for a significant share of elevator-related fatalities.

When an Elevator Fails, You Deserve Answers. And You Don’t Have to Find Them Alone.

Modern elevators are built to be safe, and in most cases, they will remain safe—as long as the people responsible for them do their jobs. The safety mechanisms that protect passengers didn’t arrive all at once; they were developed in response to accidents, codified into standards, and refined across more than a century of engineering and regulation.

When elevators fail today, it is rarely because the engineering was wrong. It is usually because something in the broke down in the process of maintenance, inspection, or repair. The ASME A17 standards exist to prevent those breakdowns. Building owners, elevator service companies, and inspection authorities all have defined roles in making sure they abide by those codes.

When those responsibilities aren’t met, and someone is harmed or killed, the resulting elevator accident case will be technically complex. The applicable safety standards span hundreds of pages of codes, and liability is often shared across multiple parties. Attorneys who have a strong track record in premises liability and product liability cases will know how to investigate these cases, identify who failed in their duty, and fight for the compensation that individuals or families may be entitled to for medical costs, income losses, pain and suffering, and more.

Every state has its own elevator safety codes and its own statute of limitations for filing a legal claim. Waiting too long can mean losing the right to pursue a claim entirely. If you or someone you love has been in an elevator accident, one of the most important steps you can take is to reach out to a qualified attorney as soon as possible, someone who will stop at nothing to protect your rights and to get the answers you deserve. No matter what.