Kentucky report blames Six Flags accident on cable fatigue, operator error

Posted | Contributed by Jason Hammond

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture today said cable fatigue on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom was to blame for the June 21 accident that severed Louisville teenager Kaitlyn Lasitter's feet.

Read more from Business First of Louisville and download the Kentucky Department of Agriculture report.

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Don't put words in my mouth. All I am pointing out is business. If they paid people more, and trained them better, their cost would go up so prices would go up.

What would that increase do to business, and would it be able to continue. I think generally, and I might be assuming here, that people don't want to pay more, but they do want more. And realistically, with the already expensive gates, parking and food, how much more would the general public take?

The main ride op says he/she saw the cable loose and didn't stop the ride. We don't know what would have happened if it would have been stopped but it is obvious the main operator wasn't trained properly.
That ride should have been stopped no problem if the ops where paying attention. The intamin towers when lifting shut down fast. You have no idea if they wern't trained correctly but you know they wern't doing there jobs anywhere near how they should have.
What's really disturbing here is the gross negligence on the part of SFKK, and yet people are arguing over whether or not her parents are entitled to any money. 10 seconds is MORE than enough time to hit an e-stop, considering as a ride op, you need to be ready to hit it at any moment. Why the girl operating the ride picked up the phone and called somebody before e-stopping the ride is beyond me.

However, the ride operators wouldn't have even been put in that position if park maintenance had done their jobs. From the report, it sounds like the cable was in such a terrible condition it probably could have been noticed in a simple visual inspection. Couple that with the maintenance guy's deposition that came out a while back stating that they didn't do the rag test because it was "inconvenient" and it's just disgusting.

It is totally inexcusable that everyone at this park managed to fail so spectacularly at doing their jobs. Until Six Flags wakes up and realizes they have a responsibility to keep their guests safe, I certainly won't be patronizing any of their parks.

OhioStater's avatar

I have a 13 year old daughter and I would not take in any money she would receive if she was injured in this fashion.

Thats the best BS to be thrown out on this site is years. Nice.

Lord Gonchar's avatar
I'm not sure how some of you are equating the ride-op not e-stopping with poor training. That doesn't add up.

The op may have been reminded daily of proper procedure. Still doesn't mean they won't flake when something actually does happen.

On the flip side you'd think someone with an ounce of common sense and absolutely no training would still have the presence to e-stop the ride when a cable snaps and people are screaming.

I just don't see how the ride-op's actions indicate anything beyond his or her actions and it's certainly no indicator of the instruction or training they received. Not taking the correct action and not being instructed of the correct action to take are two entirely different things.

Gonch is right... again.
This whole episode was casued by the failure to properly maintain the ride, if the ride had been maintained properly this wouldnt have happened, and hasnt happened on any similiar type ride.
A ride-op can be trained properly but still not do the right thing at crunch time. When you get a critical situation like this, some employee's will handle it the right way and some will crack under the stress and not handle it properly. And this happens at any workplace and the amount of money a employee is paid doesnt guarantee they will do the right thing under stress.
Jeff's avatar
I don't get this idea that the parents aren't entitled to a lot of cash because it didn't happen to them. News flash... it did. It's their kid, and they're charged with her care. I don't even have kids, but when this first happened, all I could think about is how horrifying it would be if it happened to my kid, not if it happened to me. I can't even believe you guys would be suggesting that the parents are exploiting their own kid for money in this situation. That makes me sick.
I hate to say it, but I agree with Jeff. I dont have kids either, but if something like that happened to even my goddaughter, you wouldnt see me at work for some time. Cant even imagine how scary and nerve wracking this has been for the parents.
Of course everyone is going to feel bad for the girl, but lets face it: some people were probably crying because they removed the tower. I can just imagine people complaining because it was the original one and has "history and charm."*** This post was edited by RushStreetFlyer 6/1/2008 12:44:09 PM ***
I read the report and saw that the Kentucky Department of Agriculture is assessing the maximum fine for serious injury or death of $1,000. Was the $1,000 fee created in 1950? You would think the fee would be higher to cover more of their investigation costs. The state paid a lot of money for time and resources for this incident; I would think the fee they could assess would be higher to cover costs.
Carrie M.'s avatar
I don't understand how folks are drawing the conclusion that because the parents quit their jobs they intend to live off the inevitable SFKK settlement. I would presume they quit their jobs because in the present time their daughter needs their full-time presence, care, and attention. That's their full-time responsibility over anything they get paid for outside of the home.

It has never been stated that they never intend to regain employment.

The report stated that the ride op had ten seconds from when they heard the snap that the ride could be stopped.

I really dont think that is a big enough time period . Anybody know if a cable breaks on kingada ka or ttd when a train is about to or is launching how does that work?

I am asking because it sounds like it would be a similiar problem and was wondering if the train would be stopped autimatically , would a ride op have to estop the ride or woul;d the train keep going?

majortom, here's what's happening with the ride...

The ropes* in question are attached at one end to the ride catchwagon and at the other end to a counterweight. The rope passes over a sheave (pulley) or set of sheaves at the top of the tower. Those sheaves use friction to drive the rope. The catchwagon is attached to the top of the gondola by means of a mechanical hook arrangement. There are two ropes on each catchwagon. When the incident happened, the rope broke somewhere in the middle of its length. Looking at the error log included in the KYA report, there was no indication of any kind of switch being tripped to indicate any problem with the wire rope system. The system continued to haul the ropes up the tower. The top half of the broken rope, still attached to the counterweight, rolled up through the sheave and into the tower. The lower half of the rope then fell downward over the top of the catchwagon and dangled beneath the gondola. Because the ride system failed to detect any problems, it continued to haul the catchwagon to the top of the tower. At this point, several things could have prevented or reduced the severity of the incident:

a) If the ride had been able to detect the broken rope, it could have stopped immediately. This would have stranded the riders at the top of the ride, but hopefully rescuers would have noticed the dangling rope and gotten it clear of the gondola before cutting the gondola loose.

b) If the ride operator had E-stopped the ride, the same thing would have happened: the riders would be stranded on the ride, but hopefully rescuers would have noticed the dangling rope and gotten it clear of the gondola before cutting the gondola loose.

c) If the catchwagon had been attached with only one hoisting rope instead of two, then the entire assembly...gondola, catchwagon, and dangling rope...would have immediately plummeted down the tower. The gondola would probably land harder than usual, but the rope would not have a chance to catch up with the gondola until the gondola got into the brakes, and in any case would not have been likely to be able to do much damage.

Of course, none of these things happened. So instead, the lower half of the rope dangled below the gondola, which became a problem when the ride cycle continued. The system automatically cut the gondola loose from the catchwagon. Because the lower end of the broken rope was attached to the catchwagon, which was held at the top of the tower by the unbroken rope, the gondola had to fall past the end of the broken rope, and entanglement at this point caused the serious injuries described.

On Dragster or Kingda Ka, there are three ropes involved. Two of the ropes are launch ropes which are used to pull the launch sled. The third rope is a return rope used to pull the launch sled back to the launch position. One of the reasons that two launch ropes are used is that the ropes are fully enclosed within the launch track structure, running on either side of the launch sled structure. In theory, if one of the ropes should break, things could get very messy very quickly. Let's assume a mid-line break similar to what happened on the SFKK tower. The winding drum will continue to pull the tension end of the rope, but the now-loose end (attached to the launch sled) will be uncontrolled and will literally be pushed down its guideway by the launch sled. It may come out of its slot and interfere with the sled. Even if something causes the system to E-stop immediately, the system isn't going to come to an instant stop...there is just too much momentum involved. The good news is that the train has a lot more of that momentum than the launch sled does, which means the sled will stop first. The train will over-run the sled and go shooting up the tower, but won't make it over the top due to the short shot. Hopefully, the engagement pin under the train will have a chance to fully retract before the train, now going backwards, reaches the launch sled, that way the train can roll back into the brakes on the launch track without re-engaging the launch sled.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

* The correct term for the object that failed is "wire rope". "Cable" is reserved for a collection of wires that carry electricity. This is an industry generalization.

--DCAjr

Pete's avatar
Dave, in example "c", why would the gondola land harder? The magnetic brakes are unchanged and gondola would not fall faster than usual, which is the speed of gravity.
Jeff's avatar
It's still much heavier though. Gravity is constant, but braking is still harder with heavier things.
Jeff caught it. I don't know how much of a difference it would make, but there are no brakes on the catchwagon, and I don't know how heavy the catchwagon is. Assuming that the gondola has a 'normal' load on it, the gondola plus catchwagon would be a significantly larger than normal mass.

That said, by definition, the unit would not fall as far as the gondola normally would, in fact it is likely that the rope might break while the gondola is being pulled through the brakes, which would make for a very short fall with the gondola already in the brakes.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I wonder if the parks need to go to the system the waterparks use. They put a person in the wave pool wearing a bright red shirt and see how long it take the lifeguards to notice ,shut the waves down and rescue said person.

Send someone to somewere the ride op can't see a fire a starter pistol see how long it takes the ride op to hit the e stop or people in line yelling there is something wrong with ride. I think their is a reluctance of the ride op to hit the e stop due to the fact the ride will then have to be evacuated and restarted . Make sure management will not fire someone for e stopping a ride . If an error is made make sure it is an abundance of caution. I read that all the ride ops have to run the ride 30 cycles to be authorized sometime in that training a e stop should be included.

Vater's avatar

Carrie M. said:
I don't understand how folks are drawing the conclusion that because the parents quit their jobs they intend to live off the inevitable SFKK settlement. I would presume they quit their jobs because in the present time their daughter needs their full-time presence, care, and attention. That's their full-time responsibility over anything they get paid for outside of the home.

It has never been stated that they never intend to regain employment.


This is precisely what I'd been thinking while reading all of the previous responses. Why are so many people jumping to the conclusion that the parents intend to cash in on the settlement? I have a 2 year old son and when I read the Lassiter's report of the accident I felt ill. I can only imagine how I'd feel if something like this happened to my kid. From all the info I've read I can't find fault with any of their actions since the accident, and to just assume they are planning on taking financial advantage of this situation is frigging irresponsible.

*** This post was edited by Vater 6/5/2008 1:00:44 PM ***

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