Person falls into elevator shaft at Indonesian airport
On April 24, 2023, a woman named Aisiah Sinta Dewi Hasibuan tragically fell into an elevator shaft at Kualanamu Airport in Medan, Indonesia (KNO). Her body ended up being found three days later, after a strong odor was reported in the area.
CCTV footage captured exactly what unfolded. She could be seen walking into a double-sided elevator through the doors on the right, and then she faced the doors she entered through.
Then the doors behind her opened, though she seemed to be unaware of that. She then pressed buttons in the lift, before making a phone call on her mobile phone. At this point it seemed like she thought she was stuck.
She then stood close to the doors she entered through, and they opened a bit. She then took a step forward, at which point she fell into the elevator shaft, as clearly the elevator hadn’t stopped at an actual floor on that side, so there was a large gap.
You can watch the elevator CCTV footage for yourself here (I won’t embed it), though it goes without saying that many may find this disturbing, and may not want to watch it.
Unfortunately her body only ended up being found three days later. It took the airport’s security team around five hours to recover the body. It goes without saying that I feel awful for her family — what a sad situation.
How could an accident like this happen?
There are more questions than answers when it comes to this incident — how could something like this happen to begin with, and how did it then take days to find her body?
For context, the woman was allegedly at the airport because she had dropped off her niece for a trip she was taking. In the elevator, she had reportedly called her niece to inform her that she was stuck in the elevator, and that was the last time that her niece heard from her.
The family then asked for help from airport security to locate their missing relative. They asked to see CCTV footage of the elevator, but the airport security staff only ended up showing them CCTV from other parts of the airport. That footage ended up being released after the body was found.
The airport’s head of corporate communications stated that the elevator wasn’t working correctly when the incident happened.
The woman’s family has now reported airport management to the police, though as of April 30, hasn’t received news about the cause of death. Her family pointed out that she couldn’t have forced the lift doors open, as she was holding her mobile phone in her dominant hand at the time of the incident. That does indeed suggest that the doors opened a bit too easily.
Even with the CCTV footage, it’s hard to know what exactly happened here, without feeling, seeing, and hearing what she did.
It seems pretty likely that the woman felt that the elevator was malfunctioning. While it’s surprising that she’d walk out without looking at the gap, it’s possible she was just so scared of being stuck in there, and then made a run for it. Getting stuck in elevators is scary!
Regardless, it most definitely seems like something wasn’t working correctly with the elevator, and like the airport security did a lackluster job here. The niece had told security that she last heard from her aunt while she was in the elevator, yet somehow it took three days to locate her body.
Bottom line
Elevators are usually pretty safe modes of transportation (as are airplanes). Unfortunately a tragic accident happened at Medan Airport last week, whereby a woman fell down an elevator shaft after the door opened. It seems that the elevator was malfunctioning, and then the woman tried to escape through an open door, but there was a large gap.
To make matters even worse, it took authorities three days to find the body, even though the woman’s niece explained exactly where the last contact was. What a tragic incident…
