Minato Ward 2006 Elevator Accident - Progress of Accident Investigation

Progress of Accident Investigation

• June 14, 2006. The International Herald Tribune (Herald Asahi) reports that "Loose bolts and worn brake pads, evidence of poor maintenance, likely played a central role in the elevator accident." ... "It is the responsibility of the maintenance company to ensure that such bolts are tightly fastened."

• June 14, 2006. Investigations reveal 6 cases in Japan where the elevator moved with the doors still open. Manufactured between 1997-1998, they used the same circuit board model which is now being investigated by Schindler. In the Chiba case, Schindler is still maintaining the elevator in question. Questions about the origins of the defect and why it took 7 years for some of them to fail have been raised, but Schindler Elevator KK's head Ken Smith claims that it might be PCB that has deteriorated. The elevator has had additional anti-upward safety devices installed.

• June 15, 2006. According to the Mainichi Newspaper, an employee of SEC testified to the police that he did not know how to adjust the brake of the "fatal" elevator and that he just left it as it was.

• June 16, 2006. Schindler has admitted that a software problem caused the problem with several elevators in Japan. Elevators manufactured between 1991-93 are affected, although Schindler claims that this faulty code was not a material safety risk. The problem is elevator doors could open 0.5 seconds after the elevator starts moving. When the door opens, the elevator keeps moving and do not halt. Schindler would have upgraded the software code for the affected elevators by the end of June 17. However, this was not a factor in the Minato Ward accident which was still under investigation. On NHK 9 O'Clock News Schindler K.K. representative said that the programming error was detected and fixed for a number of elevators of the same model some time ago. However some service workers may have unwittingly gone and reprogrammed them again with the old codes during maintenance and this led to the malfunctions. Initially, 9 elevators were identified to have the problem, but the list later expanded to 52.

• June 17, 2006. NHK reports that a problem in the brake has been found in the Minato elevator as replacing the brake yielded no operational problems. The motor was confirmed to be off when the elevator killed Hirosuke Ichiwaka. Experts have said (as quoted in the Yomiuri source at the end of this paragraph) if the motor was on, the boy would have received much more than bruising. Police are still investigating what caused the brake failure.

• June 18, 2006. NHK has reported that SEC, the independent company in charge of maintaining the Schindler elevator at Minato Ward, had passed an inspection of the elevator in question just 9 days before the accident. SEC had said that all components including the brakes were working properly.

• June 22, 2006. Minato Ward had confirmed that it will be replacing 2 of the Schindler Elevators (1 which killed 16 year old Ichikawa Hirosuke) to Mitsubishi elevators. The cost of replacement will be 168,000,000 yen (approx. US$1.46 Million).

• June 22, 2006. Kyodo News reports: "Police suspect a Japanese maintenance company for Schindler elevators in a Tokyo apartment building had failed to follow checkup manuals before a fatal accident on June 3 in one of the units, investigation sources said Thursday." (...) "The police suspect some of the checks by SEC Elevator Co. on the elevator's brake system were insufficient against the checkup manuals provided by the maintenance company and a public housing corporation affiliated with the Minato Ward office, the sources said. The police believe a brake malfunction was one of causes of the accident which killed 16-year-old Hirosuke Ichikawa at the building in Minato Ward."

• July 5, 2006. More Schindler door problems come to light: According to the Japan Elevator Association, the incidence of accidents in which passengers are trapped inside elevators made by the five major elevator manufacturers is on average 0.15 percent per month. However, in the case of those made by Schindler, the figure ranges from 0.4 percent to slightly less than 0.5 percent—about three times higher than average. Unfortunately the Japan Elevator Association data did not distinguish custom built elevators from commodity elevators. Custom built elevators have tend to have a higher defect rate. Elevator maintenance companies like Schindler, with a higher proportion of custom elevators, will have higher entrapment rates.

• August 14, 2006. On NHK's News Watch 9, it was revealed that the elevator which killed Ichikawa Horosuke had anomalies in its brakes that did not relate to worn out pads. When tests were conducted, it showed that the disc brake was using 20% less current than other brakes of the same model.

• November 20, 2006. The 'deadly' Schindler elevator that killed Ichikawa has been replaced with a new Mitsubishi Elevator (according to http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061121a8.html). The mayor of Minato Ward has test-ridden the elevator and residents are reporting a much smoother ride. For the past few months, workers have been working around the clock, replacing the elevator in record time. The other elevator will be replaced by February.