This review of existing technology on the acoustic-emission inspection of wire rope has confirmed that the most realistic application of the method is in the detection and location of wire breaks. However, the successful detection and location of wire breaks is dependent upon such factors as rope construction, diameter, length and number of wire breaks. The occurrence of large numbers of wire breaks work against the technique; although such large numbers of wire breaks are only likely to be generated in the laboratory during the fatigue testing of rope specimens. This review has shown that acoustic emission can be a useful laboratory tool, but application of the technique to ropes in service will probably be limited and specific to certain applications. In order to develop the technique for practical applications, future work needs to concentrate on the rope constructions that are most commonly used in industry, also those which are best suited to the technique, and developing wire-break signatures that could be designed into future equipment. This can be achieved through narrow-band filters, matching the resonant frequency of the transducers to the main frequency components of a wire break and pattern recognition software.