Carnival ride pulls scalp from 11-year-old girl, investigation finds no malfunction

Yikes, what a nightmare. I feel for the girl and her family. I hope she heals well.

Yikes is right!
That ride is an old Watkins Hustler, you don't see many of those anymore. It appears for now the ride itself was not the problem.

Please, everyone, do what you can to ensure you and your kids stay in your seats at all times.

Oh man, gross, ouch, yikes. Poor girl.

Here's a youtube video of the same kind of ride:

After watching it, yeah the only way a girl could have "fallen" out of her cylinder is if she slipped out of her restraints and squeezed through the bars on the gate part of the cylinder. If the gate had popped open it would have said that during the inspection, but they found no malfunction so far. Unfortunately looks like a case of a kid not staying in their seat.

I don't think she fell out. The stories imply her hair got caught in something inside the ride.

Right. Those tubs don't spin, per se, but kind of stay put while the ride spins. Consequently, the action is kind of a push-pull on the rider. The "restraints" on each two-person seat in the tub are usually a chain across the seat and nothing more. I can see if she somehow wound up on the floor, where her hair might've accidentally gotten caught on part of the spindle post in the center.
A freak accident, no doubt, but once again, yikes.

Well there's a quote from the mom that said "the girl fell out of her seat and her hair got caught in a ride mechanism." Of course it could be a neurotic mom so that quote could be taken with a grain of salt.

Ohhhhh I see what you're saying; she could have fallen out of just her seat but not the whole cylinder. You right.

These rides push you to one side pretty strongly. I can't remember where I've been on one, but I seem to recall spending the whole time grabbing the middle handle bar as hard as possible. Since she was seated right next to the 'door', I could see how she could slip off the bench, her pony tail sliding out under the door and getting caught on something.

It looks very similar to the Tempest - they have one at Conneaut Lake. No other ride has brought me so close to vomiting.

Side note: the ride in Bird's video looks sketchy as hell. Paint the thing, would you?

For real. There's holes rusted through the metal tub! Best part is when the kid says "someone died on this you know". Lol. Kids say the darnedest things.