Five Workers Killed After Instagram-Famous Elevator At High-End Bali Resort Plummets 300 Ft Into Ravine

Despite serving as the backdrop for several viral social media posts, a beloved elevator at the Ayuterra Resort recently proved deadly.

On Friday, one of the elevator’s cables snapped, sending the structure — and its five passengers, all of whom were housekeeping staff — plummeting down 300 feet into a ravine below. The crash killed two riders on impact, the other three ultimately succumbing to their injuries in the following days.

“The steel swing rope was not strong enough to pull the weight upwards, which was quite heavy, and the safety wedge or brake did not function, so the elevator slid downwards at high speed,” Ubud’s police chief Made Uder explained in a statement made shortly after the accident.

Yet this information proved particularly surprising to the Indonesian province's deputy governor, Cok Ace, who cited the elevator’s “routine inspection” in November 2022 as proof that things should have been running smoothly.

“It has only been 8 months since they stated that it is still [safe],” he said, noting that “This is the first time this has happened.

So take it from this tragic accident — not everything is as it appears on Instagram.