My friend recently sent me a text message,

“Ever been stuck in an elevator? Any ideas on how to pass the time?”

Aside from feeling bad for my friend and passing text messages back and forth to consume the 30 minutes he had to wait before getting rescued, there wasn’t much else I could do. I did however remember about another guy who was stuck in an elevator for 41 hours before finally being discovered. Now that’s a long time to wait. During that time his mind started running through scenarios around the stability of the elevator. Was it damaged for some reason? Was the building on fire? What if he fell to his death?

I wouldn’t doubt that most of us have entertained the idea of a elevator suddenly plummeting towards the ground due to some mechanical failure. Well the good news is that short of a catastrophic event to the building, there are enough safety checks to make sure this never happens.

But what if it does?

I remember watching cartoons as a kid where Daffy Duck was falling out of the sky in a box container and at the last second he steps out of the box and safely walks away unharmed as the container absorbs all of the impact and is crushed. This of course raised the question about the possibility of “jumping” at the last second should I ever be faced with a failed elevator rocketing towards the Earth. Could it work?

Of course I assumed not, this doesn’t seem possible but I was curious what the physics were around the reason and I found a pretty simplistic explanation while reading more about the man trapped for 41 hours. Here’s the answer from an expert:

To the age-old half-serious question of whether a passenger barrelling earthward in a runaway elevator should jump in the air just before impact, Pulling responded…, that you can’t jump up fast enough to counteract the rate of descent. “And how are you supposed to know when to jump?” he said. As for an alternative strategy—lie flat on the floor?—he shrugged: “Dead’s dead.”

So there you have it. If you find yourself in the situation, chances are you’ll be saved by one of the many fail-safes. if those fail, well it was nice knowing ya.