Boomerang suffers apparent partial derailment at Six Flags St. Louis, four injured

I saw this headline the other day and didn't even click on it because I assumed it was the typical issue of valleying in the boomerang that happens with these. I think the best part here is that it happened low to the ground and not in an inversion.

I'm really curious with what exactly happened to the train's chassis, did a part fail, shear off, etc? I believe the fourth car is the one that catches the chain on the backward spike, maybe something shook off or break during that catch?

Between 1:37-1:39

If you look closely, you can see third and fourth car actually lifted a little as it catches the chain. I remember whenever I ride on those cars, they would catch the chain so violently that I would get lifted off my seat a little.

I remember as a kid riding the Boomerang at Geauga Lake knowing to avoid car # 4 because of that violent jolt on the chain.

It's plausible. There are brakes between the vertical loop and the rear spike that kick on in the event that the train doesn't engage with the lift so it won't valley in the boomerang. If the brakes stopped the train there it could be indicative that something happened on the lift section. With that said, I can't think of any common operational scenarios that could result in such a catastrophic failure of the train. As a friend of mine who works in amusement park maintenance (not SF) said, "how does that happen?".

I assume this ride was at least partially refurbished after the move. This is either a result of an act of God or a severe failure in proper maintenance by the techs at SFSL.

Maybe all parks everywhere should remove their Boomerangs so that this never happens again. ;)

LostKause said:

Maybe all parks everywhere should remove their Vekomas so that this never happens again. ;)

FIFY

Except for the roller skaters. They tend to make me giggle.

Sfne had theirs closed all last weekend but lake compounce ran theirs over the weekend after they inspected the ride friday night. I doubt it was anything maintenance did because Pete Carmichael knows how to run a park as he was the park director for sfne for years.