The Most Dangerous Escalator In Europe | Veritasium

The Gist

A crowded escalator in Rome accelerated out of control due to a weakened main brake and a final auxiliary brake wedge that was physically tied shut with plastic straps.

Quick Overview

An escalator carrying football fans leaving a stadium in Rome experienced a catastrophic runaway event because multiple safety systems failed. Investigation revealed that the main brake possessed only 37% of its required stopping force, and someone had intentionally sabotaged the final backup system by tying plastic straps around a mechanical wedge.

Key Points: In 2018, football fans boarding an escalator down to a metro station in Rome caused the motor to accelerate uncontrollably due to their combined weight. The primary safety response cut power to the motor and engaged the main brake to clamp down on the drive drum. Post-incident tests showed the main brake possessed only 37% of the braking force required by the manufacturer's specification. An auxiliary brake was designed to trigger automatically when escalator speed increased by more than 20%. The auxiliary brake functioned by driving steel wedges into a disk on the drive shaft. Investigators discovered that one of the two brake wedges had been rendered completely useless. Someone had physically tied plastic straps around the final mechanical backstop to prevent it from operating.

Context: Escalators rely on cascading redundancy and multiple independent safety systems to prevent runaway loads when carrying heavy pedestrian traffic. When an incident occurred at a Rome metro station in 2018, investigators examined every mechanical and human layer of failure that allowed the disaster to unfold.

Detailed Analysis

When football fans packed onto the Rome metro escalator, the immense load pushed the motor past a tipping point into uncontrolled downhill acceleration. Although safety sensors correctly cut power and applied the primary mechanical brake, that brake delivered only 37 percent of its specified stopping power and failed to halt the stairs. As the speed surged past the twenty percent threshold, the auxiliary brake attempted to engage by driving steel wedges into the drive shaft disk. However, inspectors uncovering the root cause found that human intervention had completely crippled the final safety line, as plastic straps were tied tightly around the brake wedge to render it permanently inoperable.