The “breakdown” of the new elevator in the just reopened Washington Monument was actually a simple case of ‘operator error,’ according to Interior Department officials.
After a probe of the one hour elevator shutdown on Saturday afternoon, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Tuesday called it a “glitch” that could have been prevented if operators hadn’t hit too many buttons.
“Turns out it was operator error,” he told a Denver radio station. “You can’t take the human element out of it.”
The secretary added, “The elevator works like a champ now, if we don’t hit the wrong button.”
It is wonderful to see the Washington Monument shine again. Thank you to the @NatlParkService for the care you give our many national treasures. pic.twitter.com/6WkuxkBxh8
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) September 19, 2019
U.S. Park Service officials said the elevator is sophisticated and that a little more training of the operators on the top and bottom of the monument has cleared up the issue.
The bottom line: operators were giving the elevator mixed signals and calls.
“The elevator technicians determined that multiple, conflicting call and send requests directing the elevator to different levels of the Washington Monument were the source of Saturday’s service interruption. There was no equipment malfunction,” said Mike Litterst, chief of communications for the Park Service’s National Mall and Memorial Parks.
“For the first time in the monument’s history, there is no operator in the cab. We are upgrading the system to better communicate the elevator’s location and movements to the staff in order to avoid such errors in the future,” he added.
While the media made a big deal of the glitch during the first weekend the newly refurbished monument was open, it turned out to be a very minor issue.
The elevator was down for approximately one hour and no visitors were trapped in it. And once the elevator was reset, the approximately 40 visitors on the observation level returned to ground level on the elevator.
The 555-foot monument, which closed for renovations to its elevator and security systems in 2016, reopened with great fanfare last Thursday.
