The Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Coins
Carlos Coins says the decision to change the composition of the glory elevator cable “has to be investigated, because that’s what happened,” but asks not to get “hasty conclusions.” The cable has a shelf life of 600 days, but in the grade notebooks the carris required the exchange at the end of 1500.
The mayor of Lisbon asked on Friday that “not drawing hasty conclusions” as to the causes of the Glory Elevator accident, which killed 16 people, remembering to have asked for an external investigation that is going on.
“I just ask you not to withdraw hasty conclusions, It is true that there is a change of a type of cable six years agotherefore, this will have to be investigated, because it happened, ”he said Carlos Coins to journalists, after the 134 -year ceremony of the Lisbon Municipal Police.
The mayor recalled that he was the first to immediately open an external investigation and this investigation is underway. “The data that introduces me, the new data we are known, have to do with a change of a cable six years ago and therefore that shows the importance of the investigation”He stressed.
The Expresso newspaper notices this Friday that “the choice of a cable with ‘plastic rope core’” with the glory elevator, adding that “the feature feature with fiber core is pointed out as a cause by IST experts and that oil in the gutter for compromising brakes”.
In the informative note that released last week, the Office for Prevention and Investigation of Aircrows and Railroad Accidents (GPIAAF) had revealed that the cable that united the two cabins of the Glory Elevator had “” with the carriage that derailed.
“From the study done to the wreckage at the site, it was immediately found that the cable that united the two cabins gave in to its fixing point Within the top fitting part of cab number 1, which began the trip at the top of the Calçada da Gloria ”, says the informative note of this body, published on September 6.
But, at the origin of the problem, it will have been changing the type of cable Used in the lift, change made six years ago, when a cable was replaced by a steel with a cable formed by six steel strings with “soul in fiber”.
The core of the cable then became consisting of a “rope” I know “I irreversibly deformed” when it was tight and continued to deform over the months, losing volume and leading the cable to let gowhich, then, that the cable that supports the lift was released from the trambolho.
According to the investigation, “the remaining cable” and the whole system, such as “the reversal steering wheel and the pulleys where it develops its route, were lubricated and without apparent anomalies”, adding that “the cable in the upper trambolho of cab no. without apparent anomalies”.
Also according to the GPIAAF note, the elevator maintenance plan da Gloria, in Lisbon, “was up to date” and on the morning of the accident was made a scheduled visual inspection, which did not detect any anomaly on the cable or in the braking systems of the two carriages.
Like there is no doubt that the cable rupture Which balanced the weight of the two booths of the Glory Elevator was the cause of the tragedy, says.
At the time of the accident, 263 days left to change the cablewhich, according to current practice, was replaced every 600 days, which, according to GPIAAF, is its life time.
However, contractually, The carris only required companies that applied for maintenance that the cable was replaced after 1500 days of work.
“Under normal operating conditions, The cable is replaced after 1500 days work and/or in each intermediate and general reparation ”, reads in the maintenance competition booklets launched in April this year and May 2022, which the newspaper had access.
If there does not seem to be doubtful that the practice consisted of replacing the cable after 600 working days, It is not realized why this was not foreseen In the competition charges, the newspaper points out.
This incongruity between the request in the charges of charges and the practice followed in maintenance seems weaken the position of Carriswhich would depend on the goodwill of the company that maintained the elevators to fulfill a security standard that it itself will have established.
