Kentucky Kingdom managers says drop ride should have auto shut down in case of cable break

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

An amusement park ride where a girl's legs were severed last summer was not designed to stop automatically in case a cable broke, the park's maintenance chief said in a deposition. John Schmidt, ride maintenance manager for Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, said the Superman Tower of Power should have been designed differently.

Read more from The Associated Press.

Related parks

I listened to the 911 calls on one of the Louisville news websites, and what IntaminHater described sounds like it's dead on what happened.

One caller said the girl was nearly ripped out of her seat on the way down before she lost her feet. So it really could have been much worse.

I think part of the blame should be on the ride ops, who must not have been paying any attention to the ride at the time.

That is something that Intamin could try to use in their defense that the ride operators could have stopped the ride. At the same time though I don't think that you can expect ride operators to be looking straight up into the sky all the time. Their necks would be outrageously sore after a few hours of work. Not to mention at certain times they would be staring into the sun to watch the ride cycle.

Also with where the ride operators are standing and the proximity to the actual tower, it would be difficult to notice something like that from the angles and such. For those of us that have seen that ride area too, its not the most clearly visible ride for the operators.

Perhaps that is where Six Flags fell short though. Maybe there should be monitors for employees to watch. Maybe there should be more employees to watch various cars since you cant see every side of the tower, and they don't seem to run it with more than one or two people near the towers base. Now I am surprised we haven't seen more mention about the employees and investigating that as an issue. Most of the blame seems to have been on maintenance neglect.

It will be interesting to see where this thing goes. And Jeff you comment that you think that the inspections are less than Intamin requires, I wouldn't be suprised if it was the opposite. Theme parks traditional have a much higher requirement on stuff like this than the manufacturer. Also if it was less than Intamin suggests, I would bet that Six Flags wouldn't be saying that when they are trying to place the blame on Intamin. I'm sure we will learn more about Intamin's requirements as this case goes on.

Gomez, I have been baffled for years as to how Intamin's safety track record can be debated. A lot of people defend the safety of the company. Every time I hear the debate I feel completly out of the loop. Its always as if I'm missing something, which I think I might be, because otherwise theres no way people can defend their safety record. Also no explanation as to why people keep buying their rides. I just don't get it.

I'm to this day not sure I can find a company who has a longer accident list. And it will always baffle me as to how a company, in 2007 with the technology we have available, has to continually go back and add supports, and cables, and make new track and elements, because the forces are higher than they calculated. I don't get it. I could go into Intamin for days and all the things that lead to my hatred, but nows not the time. Would I blame this accident on them? No. I think this is a complete freak accident and there isn't really some one to blame, but thats not how our society works...

Ok, I don't normally post here but here goes.

I worked on S:TOP at SFSTL. Now to my knowledge the accident happened about mid-day, correct? Now with those rides there is no shade of any type, so looking up into a blazing sun is not the thing I would do. I would completely trust the ride's saftey system to stop the ride if there was a problem. It has already been stated that if the cars were on the way down an ESTOP would do nothing, there should be some type of way to stop the cars on the way down in the event of something like this. I don't entirely blame Six Flags, the ride ops or Intiman. It was a combination of any or all 3. I agree with many people though, at least it was just her feet and not anything else. People can live without feet. I am just glad that she is on the long road to recovery. She will eventually get over this to some extent and live as much of a normal life that she can.

^ Disclosure: The previous message has been approved by Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom...the safest park in the universe.

Gomez, I have been baffled for years as to how Intamin's safety track record can be debated...

Shall we bring Gomez up to date? He may simply have been sarcastic, but otherwise...

Click here, here, here, here and here.

And that's just the folks who fell out of Intamin-designed restraints where we clearly know they were a factor.

-CO

Jeff's avatar

The order of the incident was fairly simple. The car began its ascent towards the top of the tower. About 20 feet or so off the ground one of the 2 cables on her car snapped (this model has two cables many others have more but are also later additions and taller heights). Once the cable snapped it wrapped itself around her lower leg and ankle.

As this is happening the car is continuing to be raised to the top of the tower using the second cable. The car reaches the top and releases as normal. Now when the car releases from the catch car, the cable stays at the top of the tower while the car free falls. As it drops the cable gets tight, legs are lifted up, I would imagine the girl slid down in the seat as her legs where pulled until she was stopped by the restraint. Then the feet are pulled off of her body by the stationary cable as the car continues its decent.


This is the first time I've seen a rational explanation for how the accident happened. It never even occurred to me that the cable broke on the way up while the back up continued to pull up the catch car. Now it makes sense. Now my opinion is that if tension on either cable is sensed to be absent, yes, an emergency stop should park the car where ever it is.
I'm with Jeff: this is the first time I have seen anybody comment on the actual sequence of events, explaining when what happened. Given the comments that have come out of the media so far, I wonder if that is the same version that will become the "official" account, although logically it makes the most sense. It makes the most logical sense, but it is contradicted by what some of the people involved have said.

In another forum, a Person Who Should Know noted that the Intamin Giant Drop...at least the later version found in Another Park, does have some kind of a "slack rope monitor" which would detect the loss of tension in one of the hoisting ropes. Now, the Kentucky Kingdom ride was the first of its kind in the USA, so it is possible that it does not have this system, but that seems unlikely. That leaves open the possibility that the mechanic in question is unaware of the function of one of the parts of his ride, but that in turn leaves open the question of why he's giving testimony about it. It also leaves open the question of why the slack detection system, assuming the ride has one, failed to command the ride to stop.

So now there are a bunch more unanswered questions. Does this particular ride have the safety system that apparently exists on later, similar rides? If it does, did that system fail? Did the incident happen as has been described in these pages, because if it did, that describes a failure of an alleged safety system whose existence is denied by the park's mechanic. On the other hand, if the incident was different from that, if for instance the entire catch car dropped, or the system released prematurely, then it is a moot point because e-stopping the ride won't do anything once the car separates from the catch car.

I'm of an engineering mindset; I am not into the finger pointing game because I am more interested in what happened than who is at fault for it. But everything I've seen so far seems to be more about trying to spread out and/or assign blame than about figuring out just what went wrong.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

^Letting someone on a coaster that can barely fit into the restraints - that is operator fault, in my eyes.

There have been several accidents due to obese riders. I mean, if the lapbar is 'barely' or not locked, they're goin up! This happened on Colossus in 1978, as well as the Intamin Hydro water drops, and the 2 Superman coasters.

Letting a HUGE person on the ride where they are barely covered by the restraints is just as stupid as letting a 3 foot kid on.

When I worked on the Blue Streak at CP, we had to remove people from the ride (sometimes on the lift) b/c they just weren't in good enough (they were basically above the lapbar, with only their legs below). Or they just couldn't get the bar locked, or they would say they were in too much pain.

Never second guess safety.

My argument is just for the coaster rides. And Six Flags has a very nasty history with inspecting how 'well a guest is restrained'. See the Lightning Loops death from 1988 (or '87). That was just horrible...

kpjb's avatar
I didn't realize that the sequence of events wasn't public. That explains all the "e-stop wouldn't have helped" comments. What IntaminHater stated above is how I understand the event took place. (Coincidentally, it's also how I speculated it took place the morning of the accident when we all stared at our ride all day trying to figure it out.)
^I really wonder what happened. I mean, that cable snapped when the ride was like 15-20 feet up, so could they have hit the E-stop? I can only imagine the horror. The clip of the witness said he saw it snap, they went all the way screaming... then of course on the way down - when it nearly ripped her outta her seat - all the screaming, the loud 'snap'? Every time I worked on a ride, we were trained to keep all your attention on the ride and safety... well, when I worked at CP that is... When I did a day on the Texas Giant and Judge, it was a totally different story...
If the ride operator had noticed it had snapped, then yes they would have been able to stop the ride by means of either a ride stop, or an e-stop. They may have been screaming when it happened, and all the way up and down the tower, but if you've been to an amusement park, you notice theres screaming all the time. On a ride like this screaming at those points wouldn't seem any different than any other time.

The fact that the operators had not noticed anything doesn't mean that they weren't paying attention or not trained to do so. There are many other things that the operators could have been dealing with at the time. Such as monitoring the ride area for guests entering, or watching guests in line, at the exit, or looking for guests on the next cycle that may need to be height checked. They may have also been looking up at the tower. But like I've stated previously looking up gives a weird angle difficult to make things out. And with the time of the day the sun would make it impossible to look up, or be able to make anything out.

My question is if these witnesses saw the cable snap, and watched it all the way up the tower, from the reports seemingly understanding what is going on, why didn't they say something to the operators? Perhaps we should pull out the ole good Samaritan law that ended Seinfeld.

As for the large guest Intamin deaths being operator error....
You say that letting someone that barely fit on a ride is the operators fault. Well I think your statement says it all. If the guests "barely fits" that means they do indeed fit into the restraint. In my mind it is not the same as putting in someone too short. The requirements the operator has is must be this height, but in these cases there was no limit saying "if a guest is this large they should not ride". The only limit was that if they can be accommodated by the restraint, it goes down, the seat belt fastens, etc. the guest is allowed to ride.

Since the manufacturer never said that guests who look like they barely fit, are not allowed to ride, I find it completely a manufacturer error not the ride operators error. Once that operator has determined that the restraint is secure, and the belt is fastened, they have done their job without error. Since there was no preset limit outside of "getting the restraint closed" the riders have meet their requirements.

Perhaps this is why in these cases instead of seeing tightened training and employees fired or charged for manslaughter, we saw the manufacturers dramatically change the restraints in question.

As for people not really happy that Six Flags seems to be playing the blame game on Intamin, let's not forget that the first comments that Intamin had on this incident were "the cables were not purchased from us". Possibly even the day of the incident. In my mind a good manufacturer would say something like "this is a tragic accident and we send our best wishes to the guest involved. We are going to work with Six Flags and the Kentucky investigators to see how this incident happened and how it can be prevented in the future." Just how I feel on the subject. Sorry so lengthy.

As for the large guest Intamin deaths being operator error....
You say that letting someone that barely fit on a ride is the operators fault. Well I think your statement says it all. If the guests "barely fits" that means they do indeed fit into the restraint. In my mind it is not the same as putting in someone too short. The requirements the operator has is must be this height, but in these cases there was no limit saying "if a guest is this large they should not ride". The only limit was that if they can be accommodated by the restraint, it goes down, the seat belt fastens, etc. the guest is allowed to ride.

And thats just it and it's SURELY not limited to intamin. When I was heavier I visited SFNE in 2001 and I COULD FIT THE FRONT SEATS OF THE TRAIN on S:ROS and not the BACK SEATS this was clearly both INTAMIN and OPERATORs and there were several statments that the bar was a foot over the guys lap and they were trying to hold him in.

I infact had slack almost everytime going up the lift but I BEING ABLE both MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY pulled the bar down on my thights each time. I had as much as 4-5 inches between me and the bar at times.

Disclaimer, This is just personal views and observations but WITHOUT CHECKING to see that the bar is on the riders thighs, Properly seated and SECURE, THEY ARE ASKING FOR THE DISASTER that happened!

I can't blame SFGADV for forcing the bar down on TORO, IT SHOULD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A REQUIREMENT where negative G's exceed -.05

Chuck

^^^ thats what's unsafe about the lil clicking lap brs.... they dont have those restraints on drop towers tho............................... What I dont understand is all the blah blah blah about en e stop.... Maybe the ride svered the girls feet at the 15-20 foot heght yall are throwing around, but ... I find it hard to believe that it happened upon lift, it just doesnt make sense.... the weight shift alone would put stress on the tower, which would set off some type of computerized alert.... as wel as the car moving slowly up the tower and most likely snapping both cables, if there were two, if one, an e stop wuld already be in place as the car would just fall, and it's also rediculous how yours saying the cord recoiled , anyone in there right mind would know the cable would have to be larger than the ride to lift it and if it wrapped her ankles on lift it would be impossible it sliced her feet off on lift as the cable would obviously have to move the same speed as the car...................... on the other hand if it wrapped her leg going up there would be a noticable amount of cable hanging and youd think theyd stop it, simple on off button would stop a cable car from ascending a tower.... the only logical explanation is that the cable just snapped in the "boncing" part of the ride as the cable is obviously still on the car to allow it to go up and down, the cable snpped in mid "tossing" of the car and flung around as would be expected and happened to catch the girls ankles
^It didn't cut her feet off on the way up. The cable snapped on the way up.

The cable was broken, flopping back and forth, and on the way down, the cable stayed at the top while the car dropped.

It nearly ripped the poor girl right out of her seat.

I was there that day, rode the thing an hour before it happened (twice).

We spent mosta our time on Greezed Lightnin' (the real STAR of the park).

On the way out around 6pm, we saw the aftermath. It was a truly scary site. I thought it was just a wild, overblown rumor going around the park. Very scary.

I mean, I know that the legal/court system is very twisted, I just hope Six Flags is VERY ready to give the girl millions... it's a no brainer to me.

The one fact that a lot of people are not remembering is the sun shade screens that SF installed all around the ride.

Even if the operator was staring right at the ride, after about 30-40 feet.. they can't see the tower because of the screens. I'd call this a major problem for SF to defend. Imparing the view of the ride from the operator booth?

The sequence that IntaminHater has stated is exactly what happened. I don't understand why there wasn't a cable tension detection system in place either, but given the age of the ride, it was probably one of those "Ohh this will never happen" things and was overlooked during design. That and the fact that the view of the ride is obstructed to the operator may split the blame between Intamin and SF.

As for Intamin saying "They didn't get the cable from us." It's a well known fact that when you buy an Intamin ride, all parts are to be bought through Intamin so that quality control can be maintained (actually.. it's also the way they make most of their money, pretty good markup on spare parts).

CommonSense: I think you might be confusing this ride (an Intamin freefall tower) with the S&S Turbo Drop or Combo Towers (which are also sometimes called Superman: Tower of Power).

The Intamin towers have a catch car that pulls the ride vehicle up to the top of the tower and then release them where they freefall into magnetic brakes at the bottom. They don't bounce nor is there any cable running beneath the car.

I would agree with you that the bouncing portion of an S&S tower's cycle would be the logical time for a cable to snap. Because this ride operated in a completely different manner from the S&S towers the exact circumstances of the accident are obscure because there isn't a cable by the riders’ feet.


The one fact that a lot of people are not remembering is the sun shade screens that SF installed all around the ride.

Now, I haven't witnessed a cable snap of this size first hand, but I have to believe it's not something that happens completely quietly. Yes? No?

If so, then the sun shades don't hold too much defense for the operators.


*** This post was edited by DBCP 12/27/2007 1:40:34 AM ***

Well, I know no one has recently posted on this, but I've gotta defend Intamin on this. Sure they have had many problems with safety issues, and I AM nervous about hitting Fahrenheit this year at HP, but that girl's feet getting taken off was NOT Intamin's fault.

If you look at rideaccidents.com, the whole story is there. Six Flags did NOT do rag tests of any of the cables (a test in which ride inspectors run rags along the cables, and if there are any rough patches where the rag snags, the cable is stressed and could break). In fact, Six Flags did no kind of tactile testing of the cables but instead relied simply on visual checks. Also, Intamin did not suggest using corn starch to sop up any extra oil/grease on the cables, and Six Flags did indeed USE corn starch. Who knows what that did to the cables?

There WAS an emergency stop button, and the ride operator noticed a snapping sound as the car went up the tower, but she pressed the button too late. The cable snapped on the way up and wrapped around the girl's neck and around the necks of some of the other girls. They unwrapped their necks as the ride reached the top. Then the ride fell and the girl's feet were taken off by the cables.

All's I can say is that I am reluctant to visit Six Flags' parks anytime soon due to THEIR craptacular safety record across the country, and Intamin might want to rethink who they offer their rides to if the safety standards and guidelines aren't going to be adhered to.

You must be logged in to post

POP Forums - ©2024, POP World Media, LLC
Loading...