Although elevator plunges are rare because brakes and cables provide fail-safe protection, free-falling elevators still happen at some point. Elevator free-fall occurs when the cables lifting the elevator snaps due to overload or when the cables that lift the elevator is faulty and left to operate unknowingly. These are just some of the many factors that could cause free-falling elevators and often cause drastic results like serious injuries or even death. There are some documented free-falling incidents on the internet like youtube and many other blog sites that can be read with accompanying videos to be watch. There are millions of people using elevators everyday around the world, so, as an early safety countermeasure, I would like to suggest a safety hydraulic and suspension springs for impact be installed in every operating elevator around the world as a safety device in addition to brakes and cable fail-safe protection to protect the lives of accumulating passengers inside the elevator car whenever free-falling elevator occur.

The hydraulic and suspension springs may be installed beneath the elevator car and at the bottom of elevator shaft with impact plates attached to the free ends of hydraulics. The hydraulic and suspension springs will serve as a support and suspension for the impact plates so that during free fall the impact plates of the car and at the bottom of the shaft would collide with the hydraulics and suspension springs supporting them and suppressing the impact force to a level that would save the lives of accumulating passengers inside the elevator car. In order to support lives during impact, the shaft of hydraulics may have lengths of at least 2 meters so that the total swing of hydraulics in the car and at the bottom of the shaft combined would provide a total impact suppressing swing reaching up to 4 meters (more than 12 feet). The hydraulic shaft could be a lot longer when hydraulic impact suppression is applied in taller buildings. Furthermore, the attached illustration will explain best of my Impact Safety Hydraulics and Suspension Springs idea as an early countermeasure safety device in addition to brakes and cable fail-safe protection for free-falling elevator incidents.