Heads up: SkyRush down for 2012

Not that most of us think about it very often considering the location, but the Vekoma Tilt coaster was quite innovative, IMO.

LostKause said:
Here is an accident that I have always found very interesting.

Notice that the seat was dislodged from the train, which could have been a fatal problem if it was any worse. As far as I know, the cable snapped into the font of the train and lashed into the boy's leg, causing him to have to be hospitalized. See those shards of broken metal quickly spray into their faces? Terrible.

"I rode Xcelerator and all I got was this nasty permanent disfigurement and some Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome."

That is disturbing. There was another video that showed the accident in slow motion, and then it shows the damaged trains. It looked like the first car nearly got cut in half. That scares the crap out of me. There are quite a few incidents like this with Intamin launchers and cable driven systems, it seems. However, a good point was made about the possibility that maintenance may play a part in some of these accidents. For example, the Kentucky Kingdom drop tower incident. The ride and cable instructions for maintenance were blatantly ignored by Six Flags. Multiple checking systems and procedures for the cables were not performed as recommended, and if I remember correctly, some of the replacement cables Six Flags installed on the ride were not even FROM Intamin, but another company. Really, Intamin could not be blamed for it.

Also, another problem with the Intamin coasters/rides that I do not think is entirely their fault is the parks' inability to correctly determine who rides and who does not ride these rides. In almost all, if NOT all of the ROS ejections, there were definite problems with these riders that contributed to their ejections and deaths. One guy had no legs and they let him ride? I mean, he had NO legs. Like amputations at the hip on one leg and halfway up the thigh on the other leg. How could he be expected to safely ride with a lap bar when he basically HAD NO LAP? Another guy was too big and they couldn't safely close the lap bar, but they let him ride and he was ejected. I have said before that I saw a severely handicapped little girl riding El Toro and it scared the bejesus out of me for her safety, and that was a REALLY bad judgment call by the ride operators.

Am I defending Intamin? Absolutely not. While I love their rides, there are other incidents that could have caused grievous bodily harm/death, and I could not say whether every issue has been maintenance or employee error. I don't believe that for a second. For safety, I would trust B&M every time over Intamin. I think Intamin is an amazingly optimistic and inventive company, but I also think they need to go back to basics of safety and make changes accordingly.

Andy, I know they wouldn't go for it. I was just trying to say that if I were going to buy an Intamin ride, I would put in some sort of clause stating that in the event of some major engineering flaw, my park would be entitled to some amount of compensation. I know that I wouldn't have to fret so much about it if I bought a B&M, but Intamin has done well in the past, so I wouldn't rule them out for my investment.

Out of curiosity, what is this SFA SROS incident you've mentioned? I couldn't find anything about it.

Very early on its life, it ejected someone on the final bunny hops. He wasn't badly injured and walked away from the accident. At least that's how the story goes, anyway.

Edit: Turns out this happened on DL's version, not SFA's. 1999 according to wikipedia (which I know isn't 100% accurate, but close enough for something like this).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_%E2%80%93_Ride_of_Steel#Accidents

bunky666 said:

Also, another problem with the Intamin coasters/rides that I do not think is entirely their fault is the parks' inability to correctly determine who rides and who does not ride these rides.

I totally agree and yet it seems odd that we don't see the same type of things happen on B&M's (riders who have no business riding ending up getting ejected).

You're absolutely right, Andy. And that is why I say I cannot completely defend Intamin because there are people riding B&M coasters that would not necessarily be considered safe to ride, yet they're not ejected. Like I said, even with rider error, maintenance, and poor operator judgment, I would always go with a B&M coaster for safety and reliability. You can't look at the numbers and think otherwise. However, I just don't think it is ALL Intamin.

On the other hand, looking at something like Skyrush with the restraint problems and whatever mechanical issue is going on with it currently, maybe it IS them. Something I always question with coasters like Skyrush and El Toro for that matter is if these coasters are SO packed with these intense forces, I would imagine there would be some issues with more strain on everything on the coaster. I am SO not mathematically, scientifically, or anything-engineering inclined, so everybody please feel free to correct me. Anyway, if there is more strain, I would think it would be more likely for more safety issues to occur, not to mention reliability issues.

Anyway, if there is more strain, I would think it would be more likely for more safety issues to occur, not to mention reliability issues.

Math guy here. This isn't obvious. It may be that whenever there's more strain firms use more safety or whatever measures. You can't assume that safety measures or whatever remain constant over levels of intensity.

But you can safely assume that pushing the envelope farther will result in more unforseen and unplanned outcomes.

Someone mentioned Expedition Ge Force running flawlessly. Correct if I'm wrong, but didnt that have a axle failure or something like it last year. Granted, the cause for that failure may have been the park's negligent maintenance practices.

That's not obvious at all. It could be that pushing to new technology happens to produce safer rides. The newness of technology is not a sufficient condition to suppose to less safety. Old technology is not necessarily "more proven" than new technology, as it could be that the function of the technology failures over time is different than the one for new technology. Concretely, it could be that it takes older technology to reveal flaws than it takes new technology.

I didn't explicitly mention safety, but my point (probably) still stands whether we're talking about axel issues, ejections, supports, restraints etc. If it's been done 100 times before (see PTC trains) it's less likely to create unforseen outcomes than if it's the 1st time (see Timberliners etc.) That doesn't neccesarily mean the PTC's are less likely to fail. I never made that claim at all. Maybe Timberliners are truly a better designed train that will reduce safety issues. It just means that we already know the ways and frequencies in which PTC's will most likely fail and we don't know the ways or frequencies in which Timberliners are likely to fail.

Summary: The keyword here is predicitability. PTC's are predictable, Timberliners are not. How that predictability plays into which train is more reliable, safer, better, less likely to fail, etc. etc. is a completely different question.

Although I understand the importance for practical concerns (generally and in an applied scenario, we'd probably expect things that have happened in the past to keep on happening), I want to emphasize that even this apparent predictability is not sufficient (in strict logic, a framework that admittedly may not be relevant here) to suppose something that has happened (maybe frequently) in the past will continue to happen and thus is able to continue to be predicted. The only observation you're able to make here is an associative one; not a causal one (i.e., NOT on average, every so many units of time X happens, rather, you can say the increase of time tends to be associated with X.)

That would probably make perfect sense if I could remember a lick of what I learned in logic class 20 years ago.

Axle - central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear

Axel - badass fictional cop from Detroit

Or....a figure-skating leap. But I can't believe they're resuscitating Beverly Hills Cop as a TV series ...if it gets picked up, of course.

Sounds like Six Flags quality control is getting better about is who is let on ROS.

Reader Andrew was there too last night, and notes that Okafor had already boarded the ride and was strapped in before staff took him off. The ordeal lasted 20 minutes, Andrew says.

The Wizards Went To Six Flags, And Emeka Okafor Was Too Tall To Ride The Roller Coaster

cdude3 said:

<stuff about the difference between causation and correlation>

While technically true, I think it's safe to assume the sun will come up, things will fall down, and the sky will be blue. Does my clock striking 7:00 am cause the sun to come up? No. Can I rely on the sun coming up around the time my clock strikes 7:00? Yes.

Does something running well 100 times mean it will run well the 101st? No. Am I more confident that it will run better than something that's never been tested? Absolutely. Will it actually in the end? Maybe or maybe not, but I'd personally always bet on the tested than the untested.

Or Axl, the worst rock singer of our time. :p

I wouldn't say he's the worst. One of the most douchebaggiest, yes, but not the worst.

See? We got into probability and physics, and now my brain hurts.