A family say they have been left “traumatised” after being trapped in an Auckland Sky Tower lift for almost an hour.

Sampath Munasinghe and his family are disappointed about how SkyCity staff handled the situation, and are demanding the business put better protocols in place for emergency incidents.

“What transpired was a nightmarish ordeal that left us traumatised and deeply disappointed,” Munasinghe said.

Munasinghe’s wife had just arrived in New Zealand from Sri Lanka and he wanted to show her the 328-metre tower, one of Auckland’s tourist hotspots.

The family boarded the lift about 7pm on Saturday, which ascended normally until it abruptly came to a halt at the 35th floor.

A family became increasingly on edge when they were trapped in a lift in the Sky Tower on June 29. Photo / Supplied

“The small display panel indicated an ‘out of service’ error,” Munasinghe said.

Munasinghe thought it was a minor glitch, but the lift did not start moving again, so he used the emergency button to alert security, who were initially unaware of the situation.

Auckland Sky Tower. Photo / Michael Craig

“They assured us a technician would be dispatched, but after 10 minutes with no resolution, we called again, only to be told the technician was offsite, and their ETA was uncertain.”

Munasinghe was disappointed his family received no guidance or communication from staff, as his family became increasingly panicked.

“As time passed, my wife and kids began experiencing breathing difficulties, particularly my wife, whose condition worsened alarmingly.

“They vaguely promised the technician would arrive in 20 minutes, which stretched into a harrowing 45 minutes before the lift finally moved.”

Without warning the lift began to move up and down the floors, Munasinghe said.

“At one point, it reached the 45th floor, opening its doors to reveal another closed door ... any attempt to exit could have resulted in us being trapped between the lift and floor doors.”

Munasinghe said when the lift finally reached the ground floor he was met with “indifference and unprofessionalism” from the security team and staff.

“They treated us as though we were responsible for the incident, adding insult to injury.

“Our children are now plagued by nightmares, and my wife continues to suffer from the traumatic experience.

“A simple follow-up call to check on our wellbeing would have demonstrated a basic level of care and responsibility, but even that was too much to expect.”

Munasinghe said he believed SkyCity needed to improve its protocol and professionalism when responding to future incidents.

A SkyCity spokesperson has apologised for the handling of the incident.

“We are sorry a family was stuck in one of our lifts on Saturday night for around 45 minutes. Our initial review of the incident has shown that we could have done better in how we communicated with the family and assisted them during their ordeal. We apologised to the family on the night and a senior manager has spoken to them again today to apologise and ensure we learn from their experience,” the spokesperson said.

“There are around 40 lifts across the SkyCity Auckland precinct, operating 24/7. While we do not want an outage like this to occur, occasionally they do, and we are very sorry this has happened.”

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.