WORLD'S TALLEST AND DEEPEST ELEVATOR

The world’s tallest and deepest elevator is located in AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine in South Africa. The elevator carries a maximum of 120 people to a depth of 7,940 feet at a top speed of 40 miles per hour.

Please note the following for clarification of my posts entitled; 

• ELEVATORS WITH THE LONGEST CONTINUOUS RUNS (12/22/18)
• WORLD'S DEEPEST TEST ELEVATOR (12/22/18)

If you do a Google search for “deepest” elevator, the first result Google returns is a link to an article at mining technology dot com entitled; “The Top 10 Deepest Mines in the World”. The “Mining Technology” article identifies AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine in South Africa as the deepest mine in the world.

If you do a Google search for “tallest” elevator Google returns a result linking to a Guinness World Records article. The Guinness World Record article identifies AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine as having the tallest elevator in the world. The Guinness article states:

“The world’s tallest elevator is at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine, which in three minutes drops an astonishing 2,283 m (7,490 ft) in a single descent – more than 4.5 times further than those in the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

The Google search for “tallest” elevator also returns a result linking to a BBC article referencing the fact that when completed, the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia will have the world’s tallest “lift” at 2,165 feet.

It is important to note that the Guinness World Record’s article specifically states that the elevator at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine drops 7,490 feet in a single descent.

The Guinness World Record identification of the AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine single descent of 2,289 meters clearly surpasses Shanghai Tower's continuous run of 578 meters.

My post entitled; “ELEVATORS WITH THE CONTINOUS LONGEST RUNS” which identified the Shanghai Tower as having the longest continuous run of any elevator in the world comes from the Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) website.

So, which elevator can currently claim the title of “World’s Tallest” or alternatively “World’s Longest Continuous Elevator Run”?

Based on my reading, I think that there is clearly a distinction being made between elevators in buildings and elevators in mine shafts. As noted above, the BBC ran a story indicating that when completed the Kingdom Tower will have the world’s tallest elevator. All of the elevators referenced by CTUBH as having the tallest runs are also in buildings.

However, even though the BBC article referred to the un-completed Kingdom Tower as having the world’s “tallest” lift and the CTBUH lists the Shanghai Tower as having the elevator with the longest continuous run, I believe that technically speaking the elevator in the AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine, as recognized by Guinness World Records, would be considered the world’s “tallest” elevator and the one with the “longest continuous run”.

There remains one other problem and that has to do with identification of the world’s “deepest” elevator.

My post identifies the Kone test elevator located in a working limestone mine in Finland as the world’s deepest at 350 meters. The elevator at AngloGold Ashantai’s Mponeng gold mine clearly goes much deeper than the Kone test elevator. Upon further checking, I found that all of the references to the Kone Test Elevator as being the world’s “deepest” elevator refer to it as actually being the world’s “deepest test elevator shaft”. I have changed the title of my post regarding the Kone Elevator from the “World’s Deepest Elevator” to the World’s Deepest Test Elevator”.