On Tuesday, 26th October, numerous students reported having experienced a malfunction in one of the elevators of IE’s new tower. It was caused by the fiction of a pulley on an exterior door. This has been fixed and the elevator is working properly again.
Elevator G — one of the main elevators of the tower — seemed to have “stopped suddenly on a floor” and then proceeded to “drop down for around 6 floors” according to a student who was in the elevator at the time.
Although there had been a fire alarm in the morning, the students in the elevator reported the malfunction took place at around 15:00. Therefore, it seems unlikely that the fire drill was responsible for the event.
Thankfully and evidently, no student was harmed and this incident has not repeated itself since Tuesday.
The Stork contacted Dr. Miguel Larrañaga, the vice-rector for student affairs, to get a statement on the incident. According to him, the Maintenance Manager requested a full report on the incident from KONE — the company which installed the tower’s elevators. KONE is currently analysing the action logs of all elevators from the 26th of October to find out what caused the malfunction.
KONE has assured the entire university community that the elevators are safe and functioning well.
IE’s extensive integration of high-end technology involves an IoT (Internet of Things) System. According to Dr. Larrañaga “the elevators automatically adapt to unforeseen situations, such as excess load, excessive traffic to reduce waiting time, […] but those interconnected computer systems should not pose any inconvenience to users”.
The vice-rector for student affairs also emphasises that students who experience any malfunction or distress should immediately report it to the maintenance or security staff.
