Report expected today in Six Flags New England death

I believe that there need to be some major changes in the way the ride restraints & loading procedures are done on all of Intamin's mega coasters to ensure guest safety.

The first thing is to change the restraints.

Instead of having just a straight across T bar style restraint there should be right angle extensions added to ensure that there is no gap between the bar & the side wall of the seat...if you notice during an average load cycle the ops can push the bar down as far as it will go (given the varying dimensions of a riders legs) & there is still a sizable amount of space between the bar & the seat in which a passenger could possibly slip out should they pass out for whatever reason during the ride,in addition the suggestion of having a more curved vertical post to which the T-bar is attached (like those on TTD) my help as well.

The lap belts should be eqquipped with a computerized locking system(similar to that of the flying dutchman coasters) which prevents the passenger from accidently(or intetionally) removing the belt after a train has been dispatched.

Boarding procedures.

Now I've heard of several reports of the ops on the Deja vu coasters having to instruct riders not to close the harness until their lap belts have been fastened & checked by the operators...on the Superman rides this isn't the case,the ops just check the bars & belts at the same time but because the bar comes so close to the belt latch & it's sometimes hard to latch the belts as well they can't always see if it's truly latched properly or not.

What they should do is change this procedure so that the operator checks & fastens al belts first(going from front to back) & then checks the lapbars(going from back to front) & to be sure do a final front to back check before dispatching a train.

That is about as close as any park can possibly get to making sure the ride is as safe as it can possibly be from an operations stand point....now maintenance is another thing however.

Finally there needs to be a system in place giving ride ops the ability(at their own judgement) to refuse access to any attraction which they feel a guest cannot safely ride,yes it may sound like discrimination but the staff should be able to make such a choice especially when the safety of the disabled guest & those around him/her may be in question & in some cases they should be able to inqure about the nature of a guests disability if it is determined by their judgement & experience that the attraction may not be suitable for their physical limitations.

BATWING FAN SFA, I generally agree with the points you make, whether they refer to this specific accident, or just generally. Regarding the point you make about seatbelts being checked BEFORE the bars are secured, this is exactly what Oakwood did with Hydro. Loading went:

1. Belts secured by riders
2. Belts checked by operators
3. Restraint lowered individually by operator tightly
4. Restraint pulled on to check it has locked

This was an operational nightmare, and ultimately on its own for whatever reason didn't stop a girl falling out, but I suppose the only thing that would stop, for example, someone unbuckling a seatbelt would be something similar to what you mentioned earlier about Flying Dutchmen coasters - could this be done with such a seatbelt system though?

I cant help think it could also be an issue with the park's maintenence. These problems six flags is having with their superman rides have not happened on any of the other Intamin hypers around the world. Excluding the water ride that recently had the accident.

Maybe the ADA is a little too vague on this issue. Someone without a lap (ie no legs) could drag themselves into a coaster car but that doesn't mean it is safe for them to ride it. It will be interesting to see what happens. There certainly is the early stages of a pattern that should be investigated.

I think a lapbar system that works would be enough. Magnum has just as much violent airtime as superman does and I have never read of any lapbar incidents.

After the Perilous Plunge accident, 4 point harnesses were added to the original combo of lapbars and seatbelts. As best I can tell, this did not happen to Hydro. Obviously, there was a difference in the accidents, but as I understand it, Intamin never did approve of the 4 point harnesses, saying that the ride was safe in the first place.

Going by Batwing Fan's suggestions, that is essentially the way that Xcelerator is checked. It is stressed that seatbelts should be put on first, and the operators will then lower the lapbars. As best I can tell, the only reason for this is to allow the operators to get a good look at the seatbelts and be certain that they are acceptably tightened before the lapbars are lowered.

Eightdothree,
Magnum also has big sides to the car. Intamin megacoasters, giga coasters, and rockets DON'T. It could be possible because the lapbar doesn't wrap around the sides of the rider but the seatbelt does. So with the seat belt there SHOULD be no way to fall out.

Does this version of Superman have seat belts?

Regarding Hydro, I posted this somewhere else and feel it is relevant to the points CoasterFanMatt brings up:

I think there were a number of investigations forthcoming from the Perilous Plunge accident. I think the only one that considered the restraints to be inadequete was the one by OCHA (I think). Intamin have always said their
restraints were adequete, and whilst this could be argued that it was a PR thing (I thought it was, and was expecting another restraint re-design), the fact Oakwood's came equiped with the same restraints proved, I think, that
Intamin were 100% confident in their restraints. It is, afterall, bad business to sell rides that kill.

Furthermore, Oakwood carried out their own investigation. Allot and Lomax investigated the restraints and did a risk assessment on them. Oakwood operated Hydro in a very specific manner; operators would tighten and check seatbelts BEFORE they themselves would staple you in with the lapbars. This wasn't a flash in the pan - Hydro was always operated like this.

I'd also like to point out that the circumstances leading to the Hydro death are still unknown. We don't even know if the seatbelt came back fastened or not. If it was unfastened, could she not have undone the over-the-shoulder
seatbelts that Perilous Plunge now has? If so, what difference would these restraints have made?

Crash - SFNE's Superman does have seat belts. As a matter of fact the seat belts looked brand new to me on opening day this year when I rode this ride a number of times.

*** This post was edited by CalvinJ23 5/3/2004 2:48:26 PM ***

Thats it...

TAER SrOS down!!1!!!

;)

in the following picture ive circled the spot where it sounds like the man was ejected from, from the description given in all the news reports. does this look to be the correct spot?

http://www.albanyentertainment.com/sros.jpg

*** This post was edited by CalvinJ23 5/3/2004 3:02:48 PM ***

Looks like it is correct, but it also could have been in one of the larger helixes too. Now as for the restraints, I have a feeling that it didn't play a part in this, I think this guy was the problem. But that's just me.

This guy wasn't that big so I don't think the restraints were the problem. Seat belt and all something had to go horrible wrong. As for the fact that she shouldn't have been aloud to ride like his mother said, These are ride ops not DR. They cant tell who is fit to ride and not ride. No offense to any ride ops. Its horrible what happen and my though with those involved.

It now seems as though the accident report WILL NOT be released today. News article (AP):

http://www.wfsb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1832868

Rich Genthner / PTC99

The Mole, the article said he was thrown from the train in the final turn, and that would not be any of the helices would it? No.

rentzy17, did somebody DIE riding Blizzard River?

Calvin............according to the reports, that would supposedly be the spot, EXCEPT that it would contradict the one part I read where it said he fell 20 feet to the ground. This doesn't look like 20 feet to me, and I have ridden this before and my memory serves me to say the same about this spot.

To hear that he MAY have spun like a frisbee (as one witness described), hit the railing or track, I would think it may have been on the last bunny hop just to the left of the area you cirlced. If you are in the last seat in this spot, you get a fair amount of upward force, which, conceivably, if this person was already almost out, could throw you into the air, spinning you and being in the last seat, then hitting the track before falling to the ground..

What I find interesting is that I am a larger person, around 300 pounds (yeah, I know... lose weight, etc...) but I am able to get on Goliath (which didn't used to have seat belts, no telling if that is still the case) and even with the stapling, I get wicked... but ENTIRELY safe airtime. Now, I haven't been on any Intamin Hypers with the possible exception of Xcellerator, but for me, the seat belt didn't seem to be holding me as much as it was the lap bar. I guess I'm just not a seat belt fan... I don't see a need for them. If the restraint can click closed - and it did on Xcell or they would not have let me ride - then dang it, that should be enough. Unless the seatbelt is part of the restraint system, such as on X, or the Vekcoma SLCs/Invertigos/Impluse, I don't see a reason to add them... As it stands right now, even with my extra poundage the only coaster I have not been able to get on was a Stand Up B&M. I even got on Stealth with room to spare.

I guess this is a long winded way of saying, if this gentleman was only 5' 2" and 230, there is no way he should have not been able to be safely secured. I'm 6' 3" and I've never had an issue with being safely secured. And as has been said, any futher speculation at this point is probably not worth the bandwidth. I am sorry for his family's loss, but I certainly hope that this doesn't add any fuel to the "let's add quadruple redundant restraints so that even a Hungry Tiger couldn't get out of our seats." We''ll see....

-Escher

My son and i went on SUPERMAN on April 19 he's only 80lbs and he went all the way with no hands and he didnt fly out of the seat. I think the guy got scared or freaked out and got throwin from the ride. one person died on a coaster everyone makes a stink about it but what about everyone that dies in car crashes ect ect its sad that it happen but u dont close the ride for everyone else!! (i heard it was close Indefinatley) i think he undid his belt for more airtime!

"rentzy17, did somebody DIE riding Blizzard River?"

No, no one died in the Blizzard river accident. The eight people who were in the raft were only injured and thankfully some how managed not to get killed.