A four-minute trip on the Roosevelt Island Tramway yesterday turned into a harrowing ordeal that lasted hours as a series of power failures left about 70 people suspended hundreds of feet in the air, forcing a daring late-night rescue over the East River.
By 4:30 a.m. — nearly 12 hours after the trams first stalled — all the passengers were off the two trams, which had been moving in opposite directions, one towards Manhattan’s East Side and the other towards Roosevelt Island.
Rescuers began their first mid-air rescue efforts around 11 p.m. after initial attempts to start the generator and backup generator failed. The rescuers shimmied a large orange wire gondola up towards the Roosevelt Island-bound tram, which was suspended over the East River with 47 passengers.
Passengers, including several children and an elderly woman with a walker, were pulled from a side window and loaded into the gondola, which had a capacity of about a dozen people. The passengers were all rescued by 3:30 a.m. through five mid-air rescues that took about 45 minutes each.
Bron: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/nyregion/19cnd-roosevelt.html?hp&ex=1145505600&en=fdae1b96691dcd2a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
