Efforts to bring 68 strandees back to earth on April 18 briefly centered on getting the system’s main drive running, but soon turned to the emergency diesel system.

Another system – the old "motor-generator set" that served the Tramway as main power until 1994 – was not available because, as RIOC President Herb Berman explained it in testimony before the City Council Transportation Committee, "The old MG set system, which we had elected to retain as a redundant backup, was not operating. We had committed late last year to restoring the damaged motor-generator that powered its operations. The motor-generator today is being repaired in a Connecticut repair shop, where technicians are having to handcraft replacement parts for the 30-year-old machine. We expect it to be returned and put back into operation this summer."

Berman said, "The problem came when the independent controls for the backup diesel system failed to release the emergency brake, leaving the Trams stranded mid-trip unable to return to the station."

Within a half-hour of the stoppage, a half-dozen Fire Department emergency units had arrived on the scene, their sirens screaming as they streamed south on Main Street. But Police Department representatives also arrived and, when the diesel system was initially engaged, it appears the NYPD coordinator told the FDNY personnel they would no longer be needed. The Fire Department vehicles and personnel then left the Island in a less noisy and less speedy parade north on Main Street.

According to an observer on the scene who spoke with The WIRE on condition his identity would not be revealed, as the emergency situation entered its third hour and Tramway employees considered turning their attention back to resetting the main drive, the NYPD representative in charge vetoed further repair efforts, declaring, in effect, "This is now a rescue operation. We’re now taking charge."

From another source, The WIRE has learned that media reports and official statements suggesting there was close cooperation between the NYPD and FDNY in this rescue may have been exaggerated. The source, who also asked to remain unnamed, said that the two departments "butted heads" well before Police Commissioner Ray Kelly arrived on the scene and Mayor Mike Bloomberg held a press conference. He said the major concern was the question of "who gets the front page."

As Mark Bee, vice president of Doppelmayr related events to the City Council Transportation Committee, when the diesel system could not be made to operate properly, "They tried to go back to the electrical system and they [again] couldn’t get that system to operate." Without giving details of how the decision was made, Bee continued, "By that time the decision was to put the rescue Tramway into service."

At that point – probably about 7:00 p.m. – efforts turned to mounting the rescue cages, the welded-steel open-air "baskets" that are towed along the track cables by a separate emergency haul cable.

In response to a question, Bee later explained that it had not been possible to begin a parallel effort to mount a rescue cage while efforts were being made to operate the system on the main SCR drive or the diesel backup system, because "as soon as you put the rescue cage onto the track, then you cannot move the [cabins] any more. So you don’t want to stick the rescue cage on the track until you’ve given up the option of bringing the cars in... You have to go down one path and when you decide you can’t bring the cars back into the station, then you stop, you leave all the brakes set, you have a safe condition, now you put the rescue Tram into operation. And it’s a long process. In testing, it’s typically two, two and half hours, and I believe Armando had the rescue cages on in about an hour and forty minutes. So they worked as quickly as they could."

By about 8:30, a rescue cage had been mounted on the south track ropes, on which the Island-bound cabin rested, over the East River, holding the larger number of strandees. After a test run up to the first tower and back, rescue personnel proceeded to the cabin to begin removing passengers from the Tram cabin.

At last week’s hearing, two residents, David Keller and Laurence Marie Brodsky, described the rescue process from the vantage point of those waiting to be rescued:

Keller: There were two NYPD guys that came up on the first load. The caribined themselves to the Tram.

City Councilmember G. Oliver Koppel: They did what?

Keller: Caribiners, you know, the mountain-climber gear? So they had these big caribiners and they caribined themselves to the side of the Tram, and then they had attached certain equipment to the basket, and then they attached that to the Tram, and then they took some straps and tried to get as close as they could because there was like a 45-degree angle and then a four-foot gap or so. There really [weren’t] any harnesses except for the guys who were holding your arm on your left and the guys who were supposed to grab your arm on the right.

Koppell: But you had to go up [to make the transfer]?

Keller: You had to go up.

Koppell: Was there a stairway that you climbed?

Keller: You stepped on a little stepstool, then you had to step on the window, so you kind of were stepping on the window...

Koppell: So there was actually an open space below you.

Keller: Yes, there was, quite a bit of open space... I’m not sure how you would have even gotten people strapped in to make that transfer. I mean, you think about it, if it’s a downward slope or even directly across from you, you might be able to harness people in, but if you’re going up 45 degrees, it’s a nightmare...

Committee Chair John Liu: I think the point really also [is] that it would not have taken that much more effort or time to add a harness to the people being rescued before they were transferred over that gap.

Keller: I don’t think it would have taken any more than five to ten minutes a person, but I’m not an expert on that. [To Koppell:] I will agree with you, Councilmember, and say there was a lot of luck involved. Whether or not the plans worked, and I know they like to say the plans worked, it was lucky.

Brodsky: When we were on the Tram, I said, "I’m going to camp... I don’t like that cage." It’s very heavy and cumbersome. They could have devised a better system already, and the Swiss manufacturer should be questioned on that. There is a space. There was no harness, there was no net.

Rescue operations were completed around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 19 – just short of 12 hours after the cabins stopped in mid-trip. The final group of passengers were evacuated from the westbound cabin, over First Avenue, using a construction crane and a personnel platform.