Serious accident on Xcelerator caputerd on Video

Yesterday, shortly during launch the cable had snapped. the ride went up and came back down into the station (backwards). While coming back into the station it ran over the broken cable and it went up threw the floor boards of the cars. Injurying several people

Somehow the video of the accident made it onto you tube(Warning, not for the faint of heart, very disturbing video indeed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn5yCeplHc4

Yikes. A fun day gone bad in a nanosecond. Hopefully the kid is not too injured.

I don't suppose it was them that bought the video! How does something like that make it to YouTube? And so fast? An employee snapped it up and posted? Here I thought it was going to be a vid somebody shot from the ground, but no...

Wow. Hope everyone was OK.

How did that get out though?

I am sure it was an employee..

From another messageboad: The cable snapped mid way up the tower, the kid in front was bruised by the torn wire hitting his legs, looks like he is ok

How come this is not in the local news though?
Usually someone sneezes in the line for X2 and we have a special report on "Swine Flue scare at Magic Mountain" headlining a broadcast

Holy hell. That's uh... that's not good. Hope the kid's alright, that's some seriously scary stuff.

Although Re: that video existing, someone's getting fired.

I hope the injuries were nothing serious. The man (I presume father) is clearly upset and shaken (as anyone would be). I don't know if that's because his kid's leg was really gashed badly, or he was just so "spooked" by the whole event; perhaps it was a combination of both.

They get sprayed with the cable bits near the end of the launch; does that mean the "break" occurred somewhere near the wheels which run the cable into the drum?

Hmm....Makes one think long and hard about riding with no protective gear on. To me they look like they will end up being fine despite being obviously upset. The video might make for some really good evidence in court if it goes that far. Not so sure how useful it may be for determining what caused the problem.

Wow, that's awful. Looks like they are OK but that's probably the last coaster they ever go on.

How long will Cedar Fair put up with these types of accidents on their Intamin cable launch coasters before Intamin either patches the rides to prevent this from happening or they take them out of commission.

Wow, Intamin should stay very far from cables.

The spray of debris from the bottom of the car is pretty scary stuff. That implies that either the floor isn't steel or the cable did a number on the cosmetic front end.

The problem with these cable snaps seems to be that the separated cable has nowhere to go. If it's built similar to Dragster, normally, the catch car hits its set of brakes and decelerates the mass of the car as the motor comes to a quick stop. In this case, the motor comes to a quick stop but the cable's momentum will cause it to keep moving without the catch car to keep it in place. The only possible outcome is for it to snap out in front of the train.

I've never been comfortable with this system, and this doesn't help.

Yeah, it's definitely hard to tell how much of the reaction is panic and how much might be due to injury. I can only imagine how frightening that experience would be and then to be trapped in your seats afterward would be even worse. I think that I for one would want to get up and out of the car as fast as possible.

beast7369 said:
Hmm....Makes one think long and hard about riding with no protective gear on.

Exactly. This is a perfect example of why I hate their policy on eyewear. You can't wear any, even with a secured strap. It's ridiculous. Obviously a cable snapping is a very rare occurrence. But, while ridding at Cedar Point last weekend, I had 2 bug splats on my glasses. And my nephew had 2 (luckily) on his forehead. More and more, I feel like just skipping out on rides that don't allow me to ride with my strap-secured-glasses.

I also had an issue with the "no eyeglasses" policy on this ride.

I had a strap, but was still not able to wear them. Needless to say, I did not really enjoy the ride as much as I could have, because I could not see much.

I wonder why it's not an issue on dragster or kingda ka, or milleninnium force? 2 of those coasters have a faster launch then xcelerator does.

When designing a ride with this type of launch system you would think the first issue they would tackle is what to do if the cable breaks during operation or engineer it to ensure the cable never breaks during operation.

You obviously would think this is thought about in the engineering process, but you forget that this is a ride manufactured from the most irresponsible Roller Coaster engineering company in the world today. The saddest part is that these types of accidents have become something regular from this company, and no one seems to care enough to put a stop to the madness. For whatever reason parks keep purchasing from a known poor manufacturer that has a very high injury/death rate comparatively to other companies, and they never take responsibility. All you Intamin fans can continue to close your eyes to the facts or you can wake up and see reality....

^ I would have never expected that kind of post from YOU, IntaminHater. ;)

If you watch the video closely you will see the young boy's seat is compromised from the mechanical failure and jerked forward at the 15 second mark. If the floor/frame of their car is damaged, possibly similar to what happened on Kingda Ka, could retrofits be on the way to ride vehicles to prevent catastrophic injury to ride occupants?

Does make you think twice about riding these rocket coasters from Intamin.

That was either chunks of fiberglass on the front of the train disintegrating from the impact with the catch car or it was hydraulic fluid sprayed at them when the cable popped.

I will say one thing...this is a PR department's WORST nightmare. Doesn't help that this video will spread via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, RSS within minutes. Look at that YouTube video's comment section. A news crew is already attempting to secure rights to the video for use on television.

Another thought: knowing that the restraints can only be opened with the power/battery pack outside of the station, if there were ever serious injuries due to an accident this utilization of a restraint safety system would create delay in being able to get ride occupants out and immediate treatment.

Gotta love B&M (and the old Arrows for that matter) for keeping things "simple."

^ You have to consider that these riders are still a good 10-feet off the ground. Even if the restraints could be opened immediately, do you expect them to jump down?

By the time park medics learn of the situation and get there with ladders, it would have taken just as much time for the train to be reversed back into the station, where riders can be unloaded safely.