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Deadly elevator fall in Brooklyn building

NEW YORK – More than 10 people were in the elevator of an apartment building in Brooklyn that plunged to the basement on Friday (Oct 2), killing one man, a city official said yesterday, as experts raised questions about the functioning of the cab’s braking system.

NEW YORK – More than 10 people were in the elevator of an apartment building in Brooklyn that plunged to the basement on Friday (Oct 2), killing one man, a city official said yesterday, as experts raised questions about the functioning of the cab’s braking system.

The police initially said there were from four to six people in the elevator when it dropped from the lobby toward the basement, its door still ajar. Mr Eran Modan, a 37-year-old Israeli man, was killed when he became pinned between the cab and the elevator shaft as he tried to escape.

A witness said that there were five people in the elevator, and that the group was visiting friends at the six-story luxury building in the Williamsburg neighbourhood. The witness, a woman who was a friend of Mr Modan’s, said the group had just come from watching her perform as a disc jockey at a club in Manhattan.

After reviewing a security video, however, investigators believe that more than 10 people were in the cab, a city official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. Investigators also believe the passengers had brought what appeared to be sound or musical equipment onto the elevator.

The capacity of the elevator, the only one in the building, is 2,100 pounds (950kg), the city official said, putting it on the smaller end of New York City elevators. That would amount to a 14-person limit, elevator engineering consultants said, based on standard weight estimates. But those experts also said braking systems were typically designed to hold at least 125 per cent of capacity.

The brake apparently failed to keep the cab from falling. “The device brake was unable to hold the capacity load,” the city official said, adding that a full-load test would be conducted before the elevator could be used again.

Mr Modan’s death was the first elevator-related fatality recorded by the Buildings Department this year. There have been 35 elevator accidents that caused injuries this year, including the one on Friday. There are about 60,000 elevators in New York City. NEW YORK TIMES

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