Elevator Death Sparks Nationwide Investigation

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]Bloomberg: Japan Orders Nationwide Inspection of Schindler-Made Elevators
Japan's government ordered a nationwide inspection of elevators made by Schindler Holding AG, the world's second-largest maker of elevators, after the death of a high school student. Japanese prefectures have been told to report how many Schindler-made elevators are installed in local buildings, the number of malfunctions that have occurred and details of each malfunction, the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport said in a press release...Local subsidiary Schindler Elevator K.K. said in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday that the company's elevators undergo "checks that are regulated by national code". The statement, released in the name of Ken Smith, representative director, said the company was "convinced that there is no reason to attribute the accident to either the design or installation of the elevator"...more...

I wouldn't fancy Ken Smith's job right now.

[kurohinge1]

. . . I wouldn't fancy Ken Smith's job right now.

Interesting that Schindler's Lifts (:oops: ) was named but no one is naming the two companies that had been maintaining it (or, perhaps not maintaining it) since 2005.

. . . The elevator in the building was supplied and installed by Schindler in 1998 and maintained by the company until March 2005. After that, it was maintained by two different companies, according to the statement, which didn't name the companies . . .

And here's the gory details:

. . . a technical glitch in one of its elevators led to the death of a teenage boy, officials said.

. . . The 16-year old is thought to have been crushed to death Saturday as he tried to step out of the Schindler-manufactured elevator at a Tokyo condo. The elevator suddenly moved upward with its doors open, wedging the boy between the elevator and the building.

. . . Local news reports have said residents at the 23-story condo had reported at least 20 incidents of minor trouble with the apartment complex's two elevators in the last 2 1/2 years, including strange noises and malfunctioning doors.

Schindler -- a unit of Switzerland-based Schindler Holdings AG -- released a statement saying it is convinced there is no reason to attribute Saturday's accident to either the design or the installation of the elevator. . . more

Poor lad.

[Mulboyne]

If you look at the Schindler website, you'll see that they bought a Japanese elevator maintenance company called Mercury Ascensore in October 2005. I don't know for certain but I suspect that the some maintenance contracts for existing installations would have been undertaken by this company before a full integration could take place. That might explain the "two company" reference. Or it might not.

[Mulboyne]

That might explain the "two company" reference. Or it might not.

And, indeed, it doesn't as the report below shows. It also takes a little bit of the heat off Schindler in this particular instance.

Yomiuri: Failure to communicate led to elevator death of boy

Despite a history of elevator malfunctions at City Heights Takeshiba that ultimately led to the death of a 16-year-old boy Saturday, the Minato Ward public housing corporation that runs the apartment complex failed to give details of past problems to two of the firms that took over the maintenance of the elevators, it was learned Tuesday. A Metropolitan Police Department investigation has shown there may have been irregularities in the elevator's control panel, which controls the car's movement. Suspecting the housing corporation's negligence was at the heart of the control panel problem going unnoticed, the MPD has begun questioning those responsible at the housing corporation.

Construction on City Heights Takeshiba was completed in April 1998. Koto Ward-based Schindler Elevator K.K.--the elevators' manufacturer--was contracted to maintain the elevators at the housing complex until fiscal 2004, according to the public agency, which operates the ward-owned housing complex...From the beginning there were reports of a number of problems, including doors that would not open, in two of the block's five elevators. From fiscal 2005, the public housing corporation opened the elevator management contract to competitive bidding. Between April last year to March, Tama, Tokyo-based Japan Electric Power Service Co. (JEPS) held the commission.

However, when the firm took over the project, the housing corporation only told it there had been incidents in the past when "the elevators did not stop at the floors they were supposed to," without going into detail about the malfunctions, according to JEPS. Complaints and malfunctions continued during JEPS' tenure. But when Taito Ward, Tokyo-based SEC Elevator Co. won the contract in April, the housing corporation did not give it any information regarding the elevators' troubled history. SEC in turn asked the public corporation to obtain a report on the lifts from JEPS. According to SEC, the demand was never met.

[IkemenTommy]

If you look at the Schindler website

I love how for their residential model, one of their key attributes is

We deliver silence.

There are lots of other funny as hell but unintended puns in their website that they will make some changes soon.

[Mulboyne]

The head of Schindler's elevator division,Roland W. Hess (centre), bows to the Mayor of Minato-ku. That's probably Ken Smith on the left.

[Mulboyne]

[Greji]

The head of Schindler's elevator division,Roland W. Hess (centre), bows to the Mayor of Minato-ku. That's probably Ken Smith on the left.

Make that "That's probably the unemployed Ken Smith on the left."

[Ganma]

[Mike Oxlong]

Two die in Japan lift accidents

Two people died Monday after separate lift incidents in Japan, with a restaurant worker trapped in a dumb waiter and an office worker caught half-way through the doors when an elevator suddenly dropped.

A 28-year-old woman died after getting trapped in the dumb waiter at a restaurant in the central city of Nagoya late Sunday, police said. The lift, reportedly just 70 centimetres (28 inches) high by 60 centimetres wide, was designed to carry dishes between floors of the restaurant.

"An assistant manager found her stuck in the door after she didn't reply to his call," said a police spokesman in Aichi prefecture. The injured woman was rushed to hospital but died early Monday morning, according to authorities.

Broadcaster Nippon Television reported that the machinery involved in Sunday's accident was built by a Japanese manufacturer.

In a separate accident in Himeji in western Japan, a male office worker died Monday afternoon "after getting stuck in a lift that suddenly descended", a police spokesman said.

The 64-year-old was making a delivery to another company when an object became wedged in the crack between the lift and the first floor, broadcaster NHK reported.

The man was standing with one of foot in the elevator and one outside when the machinery made a sudden lethal move, NHK said.

The fatal accidents came about a month after a hotel cleaner in Kanazawa was crushed to death in front of her colleague when she stepped into a moving elevator, made by Switzerland-based Schindler.

One of the Swiss firm's lifts was also involved in a fatal incident in 2006 when a 16-year-old schoolboy in Japan was crushed to death.

http://www.mysinchew.com/node/80473?tid=37

And a classic Mulboyne post on how shoddy maintenance appears to have been involved in the Schindler elevator accident.

[matsuki]

In one of these?



Time to rename them to dumb waitress?

While the Japanese sure love their inspections and checks...actual maintenance appears to be a teeth sucking matter..

[Russell]

[Coligny]

In one of these?



Time to rename them to dumb waitress?

While the Japanese sure love their inspections and checks...actual maintenance appears to be a teeth sucking matter..

Hey, I have one like that in the clinic... (elevator, not hot slut in waitresse uniform)... Didn't survive a flooding from a previous typhoon so I can use the shaft to run wiring between the levels...

[yanpa]

Hey, I have one like that in the clinic... (elevator, not hot slut in waitresse uniform)...

Why on earth not?

[matsuki]

In one of these?



Time to rename them to dumb waitress?

While the Japanese sure love their inspections and checks...actual maintenance appears to be a teeth sucking matter..

Hey, I have one like that in the clinic... (elevator, not hot slut in waitresse uniform)... Didn't survive a flooding from a previous typhoon so I can use the shaft to run wiring between the levels...

Let me guess, you have that but no human elevator?

[Coligny]

Choko: yes... le sux btw...

Yanpa: smart, rich or beautifull choose tw... hemmmm in my case... just one... sort of stateistricral abnormarly...

(I'm moderately biblically pissed right nao, limit to the point of pulling a reverse Iparru... trying to tame the urge to kill by taking it on the whip, the blue car clogging route1 by trying to do the speed limit in first gear it's me... wonder how far that shit can go while staying in the redline)

[matsuki]

Choko: yes... le sux btw...

Yanpa: smart, rich or beautifull choose tw... hemmmm in my case... just one... sort of stateistricral abnormarly...

(I'm moderately biblically pissed right nao, limit to the point of pulling a reverse Iparru... trying to tame the urge to kill by taking it on the whip, the blue car clogging route1 by trying to do the speed limit in first gear it's me... wonder how far that shit can go while staying in the redline)

Haha, so you fixed it a promptly added paw friendly controls for your feline friends to use it while you take the stairs?

Have you begun funneling off your joint accounts to the US yet? Get the dollar while it's still cheap cheap cheap

[Taro Toporific]

Ups And Downs of Elevators
Wall Street Journal | 30 November 2012
...Otis research fellow Theresa Christy optimises elevator usage. Asians will crowd, Westerners want space. Japanese want good notice of which elevator is coming next, so they can line up. Nobody wants to wait more than 20 seconds...
...Japan also boasts, in Ms. Christy's opinion, the smoothest, best-riding elevators. "When you get into an elevator there, you sometimes think you are 'stuck' in the elevator because the motion is so smooth and quiet," she says. But that service comes with extra costs and slower speeds.
Another problem: How many people fit in an elevator? In Asia, more people will board a car than in Europe or New York, Ms. Christy says; Westerners prefer more personal space. When she programs an elevator system she uses different weights for the average person by region. The average American is 32 pounds heavier than the average Japanese.
More...

elevator-girl.jpg

[Coligny]

no USD when you's married with Tanaka Miss Dumbfuck, no matter how properly backed your explanashiunz are, watching korean drama a 2x speed is more important than anything else. So fuck it, when her accounts run dry i'll go for another sugar mama preferably not from a mental asylum island turned country by mistake, despite the countless case of stuffed sluts reaching expiration date and realising that their bank accounts might not provide them much company not matter the timeframe considered.

Right now i'm packing my bob in case i don't cool off before this evening.

[Coligny]

Another problem: How many people fit in an elevator? In Asia, more people will board a car than in Europe or New York, Ms. Christy says; Westerners prefer more personal space. When she programs an elevator system she uses different weights for the average person by region.

NO dumbfuck, only in countries where indoor plumbing is a luxury, but they'll also ride on the roof of trains so why not apply that to elevators too ? might be fun to ride with the pulleys...

Do they even have a word for carpooling in japanese ?

[matsuki]

nice images there taro!

Ms. Christy strikes down one common myth—that "door close" buttons don't work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, she says. It depends on the building's owner.

Myth? Shit, I have yet to use an elevator in the US where that button works.....in Japan, it nearly always works.

How many people fit in an elevator? In Asia, more people will board a car than in Europe or New York, Ms. Christy says; Westerners prefer more personal space.

Why not just come out and say it....

"Asia"


Westernerererereland

[matsuki]

no USD when you's married with Tanaka Miss Dumbfuck, no matter how properly backed your explanashiunz are, watching korean drama a 2x speed is more important than anything else. So fuck it, when her accounts run dry i'll go for another sugar mama preferably not from a mental asylum island turned country by mistake, despite the countless case of stuffed sluts reaching expiration date and realising that their bank accounts might not provide them much company not matter the timeframe considered.

Right now i'm packing my bob in case i don't cool off before this evening.

Don't tell me she has all her popcorm savings in an account without your name on it?

[Coligny]

ok, so I don't tell you...

but you said it anyway...

[matsuki]

ok, so I don't tell you...

but you said it anyway...

Wow, that is not good indeed. Maybe time to take out some life insurance and change her daily route to one that involves lots of tunnels and elevators.

[Grumpy Gramps]

Now Schindler chickens out...

Elevator maker Schindler is selling its Japanese business to United Technologies' Otis unit after its new installations in the country were halted following a 2006 accident.

It gave no financial terms in a statement on Tuesday.

Following the sale to Otis Japan, Swiss-based Schindler said that it planned to remain in Japan to "meet its legal and societal obligations with respect to ongoing legal cases".

Source...

[matsuki]

One of my buddies just had his younger brother killed by an elevator in Saitama. Went to inspect it and the thing just dropped on him when he was in the shaft....I didn't want to ask any more details after he told me "I went there to ID the remains...there was nothing left to ID." Dude has a really young kid...

edit: found an article: http://www.saitama-np.co.jp/news/2016/02/26/02.html

[kurogane]

That's truly sad. If only he had been on a Schindler's Lift...............

[Coligny]

One of my buddies just had his younger brother killed by an elevator in Saitama. Went to inspect it and the thing just dropped on him when he was in the shaft....I didn't want to ask any more details after he told me "I went there to ID the remains...there was nothing left to ID." Dude has a really young kid...

edit: found an article: http://www.saitama-np.co.jp/news/2016/02/26/02.html

need some special skillz to have an elevator drop... the safety catch brake is quite foolproof thanks to its simplicity. No load on the wire extend the brakes...

[legion]

One of my buddies just had his younger brother killed by an elevator in Saitama. Went to inspect it and the thing just dropped on him when he was in the shaft....I didn't want to ask any more details after he told me "I went there to ID the remains...there was nothing left to ID." Dude has a really young kid...

edit: found an article: http://www.saitama-np.co.jp/news/2016/02/26/02.html

That's terrible

Did it make the national news?

[Russell]

One of my buddies just had his younger brother killed by an elevator in Saitama. Went to inspect it and the thing just dropped on him when he was in the shaft....I didn't want to ask any more details after he told me "I went there to ID the remains...there was nothing left to ID."

It is always good to keep things in perspective...