Intamin restraints called into question after recent accident

Beast Fan,

Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from your statements. It may be the ride operators implementation of the restraints that is at fault, not the restraints themselves (see my above post). If the speculation holds water, then this is exactly what seems to have happened in this tradegy (and I do fully acknowledge that this has yet to be confirmed). Any restraint will only be effective if the dimensions of the rider do not prevent it from being properly applied. It is manufacturers responsibility to state the parameters that the restraints are effective within and the parks responsibility to ensure that a rider is of appropriate dimensions for the ride i.e. that these parameters are adhered to. It seems that Riders are being allowed on rides that were not designed to accommodate them, when they should be being turned away.

Brian, thanks for correcting me. I did not realize that Big Thunder Mountain @ Disneyland was a Vekoma designed/engineered coaster. I did not include CCI in the list of manufactures without a fatality, but even excluding Vekoma and CCI from the list, there are still plenty of ride manufactures who have not had any of their rides result in a serious injury.

Also the incident on the CCI designed Raven, was dealing more with the rider not using good judgement by removing the seatbelt and standing up on the ride at certain portions along the course. That particular accident was due more to the rider being irrresponsible then the actual restraint or design of the ride.

In Vekoma's case the accident on Big Thunder Mountain at DisneyLand was due to lack of proper maintance and the park was really responsible for the accident not Vekoma.

I don't think the restraints failed. They just were not used propertly. If used propertly then every thing would be ok. You could ride superman with the seat belt only and have no problems. If the seat belt wasn't used then that the problem not the restraint system. I wouldn't be surprised if a few rows are fitted with seat belt extenders.

I think a lot of turning away has to do with fear. Ride Ops are mostly young kids and having to deal with adults and telling them they are 2 large could get ugly. If it don't click don't push it. If it takes 2 ride ops to push your lap bar down then you shouldn't ride. Its for your own safety.

Don't forget Intamin does build more than drop rides, water rides and coasters.

They build flats , tower, simulators, flumes, rapids, and ferris wheels too. I'm sure all of these are included in theit stats. In all they must offer 50 types of rides for sale on their site. Link

I'd like to see the stats for just their rides that offer the T Bar restraints. I bet it's a lot lower than 800 million riders per year.

Crashmando, not to mention the difficulty of telling a man with cp that he could not ride the ride. However, it is something that needs stressing by the park and the manager of the ride, who should be looking for these types of problems.

Crashmando,

It really shouldn't get ugly between the ride operator and guest, because it is for his or her own safety.

Have you noticed that B&M have retrofitted their coaster with the so-called "big-boy seats?" Maybe, after these incidents, Intamin should design a seat that can fit guests of larger body dimensions. Not every seat, just say one or two seats per train.

It seems that, for the amusement ride industry to be safe, to try to accomidate medium sized riders, but they should, and certain problem coasters, put seats that the persons can fit into safely. The one restraint you think would fit all people would be the PTC Buzzbar, but it doesn't. I was at Adventure Land in Iowa last year, and the bar wouldn't fit over... sad.

Roose Said: Notice the difference:

http://rcdb.com/installationgallery1106.htm?Picture=1

http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery541.htm?Picture=2

The first things that come to my mind are:

1.) The Intamin seat kind of fits like a lawn chair, while

2.) The B&M seat snuggles around you.

On Intamin's California Screaming the green trains [2 of them, IIRC] have special seats for riders with disabilities. Perhaps this would be the easiest solution for the rest of the Intamin coasters?

But there is a flaw in the system if it is allowed to be dispatched with the bar not properly secured. If that is the issue. B&M's hypers cannot be dispatched without the lap bars properly secured. Also, the issue could be the seat that isn't as angled and have as high on the sides as the newer intamins. The fact that riders keep getting thrown from rides with this type of restraint sytem is an issue.

Back before B&M added the belts on the standups they used to have a minimum of 3 clicks. On the hypers it still is a two click minimum. Various other rides also have a minimum number of clicks to only ensure the restraint is down far enough, but also in the event that the restraint pops up a notch or whatever.

Im still cautious to think the restraint popping open is the problem, moreso than the design of the lapbar itself. If it does have something to do with the seat belt positioning on the person, then maybe the location of the seat belt should be changed so that a persons center of gravity does become off...or at least change the lap bar itself to a shape that is more secure (ie TTD and Xcel)

The basic premise of 'catastrophic failure' analysis is that there has to be a certain set of extreme conditions, when in the perfect combination and order of occurrence, can cause a failure.

It seems to me that ALL of these conditions occurred in such a way to cause this tragic event.

Fever

"Beast Fan,

Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from your statements. It may be the ride operators implementation of the restraints that is at fault, not the restraints themselves (see my above post). "(Beyond Oblivion )

I would like to respond and perhaps further explain my conclusions. Being a former ride operator, I do have some insight on what safety responsibilities a ride operator has. A ride operator is responsible for the proper operation of the ride, which includes proper checking of the restraints, enforcing height restrictions, knowing the fun and safety guidlines for that particular ride, proper operation of the control panel, among other things.

The fun and safety guidlines are a recommendation that certain people with the following conititions shoud not ride: (this is for Paramount Kings Island)

1) High Blood pressure

2) Neck, back, or bone injury

3) Heart Condition

4) Recent Surgery or illness

5) Pregnacy

Not all rides at PKI have all 5, but typically a coaster such as the Beast has all 5. I am sure that Six Flags New England would have something similar to the fun and safety guidlines for there rides. Also for rides like the Beast, certain conditions such as upper body control is required and if a rider does not have upper body control, the operator is responsible to made the decision that the person is not fit to ride.

With this being said, I am not certain that some of the blame of the recent accident at Six Flags New England Superman Ride of Steel coaster, could not fall on the parks rides operation and not completely on the hands of the ride manufacture Intamin. It is really to early to speculate on what exactly happened though, and putting the blame on the park for there operating procedures regarding this accident is premature and might not have any validity onece the invesitgation reveals more of what actually happened.

The reason why I feel that the restraint is to blame, is based on the frequency of the accidents witht this restraint(even though the risk is minute by looking at the statistics, it is still greater than any other ride manufacture that I know of),. Other ride manufactures have large guest or guess with disabilitiies ride there attractions yet they do not nearly have as bad of safety record as Intamin does. Also Boliger and Mabillard has a certain row for larger guests in order to safely and comfortably restrain a larger guest that wants to ride.

When I was a ride operator on the Beast at PKI, one thing that was very important was checking the lapbar and making sure that the restraint was down two clicks. Larger guest sometimes needed help getting it down two clicks, and a few times a day, certain guests were to big to have the restraint go down two clicks (or it was to uncomfortable) and thus they could not ride.

So, it is possible to either accomadate a larger rider with a bigger seat and a modified restraint (B&M does this) or for the park to have some standard of how far the restraint should go down (in Paramount Knigs Island case, 2 clicks).

Intamin should at least think about modifying their lapbar in some way. A row or two specifically designed for larger guests would not be a bad idea in my opinion. A complete redesign of the lapbar might be costly but appears to be necessary. 5 accidents in 5 years and 4 of the accidents dealing with the same restraint clearly shows that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. The first or second time it happened, one might have not faulted Intamin due to the large guests (300 lb) and felt that guests of that size should not have been allowed to ride.

However 5 times in 5 years, is 5 times too many in my opinion. The current and future success of the amusement park industry is depedent on the safety of the guests. With that being said, in my opinion it is in Intamin's best interest, and in the best interest of any park with an intamin designed/engineered ride, and the best interest of the amusement park industry in general, to have Intamin modifie their T-shaped lab restraints.

Here is my pure speculation on the matter. The T-bar did not fail, the person's body type was one with a larger then normal stomach, the seat belt was fastened by lifting up the stomach fat. The bar was pulled down with the stomach fat inbetween the rider and the bar. During the ride the negative g's pulled the stomach fat slowly up and over the bar. The next set of airtime the bar wasnt latched down far enough (because the stomach fat wasnt inbetween it any more and allowed the riders legs to slip through the restraint. The seat belt somehow failed (either because the person un-did it or something made it become undone).

Thats the only way I can think of how this person fell off in the middle of the ride (not the first moment of airtime). Remember, this person had a handicap that caused his legs to not function normally. He likely could not have kept his legs in the proper z postion during airtime and thus if his body could squeeze out of the restraint it would (because his legs would be as moldable as clay).

Intamin hypers dont have "clicks" like other lap bars. They essentially have an unlimited amount of "clicks" those things dont move either once they are locked, trust me. I honestly think that the system in general was not the problem, unfortunatly it was the combonation of the rider body type and the system (which of course is not the fault of the rider).

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5th time? SFDL, KBF, Oakwood, SFNE....?

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I believe the fifth would be the incident on S:ROS at Six Flags Darien Lake shortly after it opened in 1999. A guy was tossed from the ride towards the end but fortunately suffered only minor injuries as a result.

With all of this talk about faulty Intamin restraints, I would like to pose a question. Should all coasters with PTC trains be shut down until their restraints are redesigned. Probably more coaster riders have died while riding in PTC trains than any other current manufacturer.

All of this speculation is what drives lawmakers like Ed Markey to want to regulate parks into the ground.

Even with the accidents that have happened on Intamin rides you are still safer riding one of them than driving to the park in the first place.

Bartman

Ed Markey(D) must of had a tragic experince on a rollercoaster when he was young. I bet his eyes lit up when this trady happen giving him an excuse to open his big fat mouth. He's been trying shut down coasters for years. So ed is u read this F**k off

I believe I read that the victim was riding in the last row. I also have noticed that the brakes a positioned very shortly after the final turn. Can someone tell me if the last row is still in the turn when the train starts to hit the brakes?

A comment on multiple restraint systems. For rides with major negative G's such Intamin Hypers, ASTM standards require dual restraints. That means that each restraint must be capable of holding the rider in place by itself. As far as I know there is no legal requirement for this in Massachussets, but it does mean that to good safety standards it is not acceptable to allow a rider to ride with only one restraint secured.

One factor not mentioned in securing the rider is limiting room for leg extension to force the rider to be bent at the knees keeping them high enough for a lap bar to function. The limit that Premier puts on this for their lap bar system is why some longer legged riders are not very comfortable in their trains.

Phill76, did you even bother to read your last sentence? You sound really ignorant.

Markey needs no speculation to promote overregulation. That is what politicians do.

Jim,

There was a lot of talk about where the victim was. It was finally determined he was riding in the front row. The whole story has more twists and turns then the ride itself.