Sky Ride Safety?

The Magic Mt and Six Flags Over Mid-America accidents are probably why we don't see many of these rides in parks these days. Most of them were removed in the years right after those accidents. These were once standard ride in just about every park.

There is no backup system if something fails in where the clamp holds the cable. There is one cable, and the cars are held onto it with one clamp.

MForce2k, both Millennium Force's and Dragsters's cables have snapped at least once, but no one has ever been severely injured.

When thinking about safety on sky rides, I also began to think about the system of restraints. Just about a week ago at Waldameer I was on their Hopkins model Sky Ride and noticed something. The restraints don't exactly prevent an accident from a child/smaller person from slipping under. I know there's a minimum height requirement and another height requirement to ride alone, but it seemed way to easy for small children/adults to slouch down and simply slip out. To add to that, it's easy on that model to unlock the restraint by simply pulling the lever behind myself. Then again there are many rides (scramblers, enterprises, tilt-a-whirl, paratrooper) that is very possible. As for the cables, let's hope the ride is inspected frequently.

When working on Delta Flyer, we discovered that you could pop open a cabin door by applying firm pressure to the seat across from you if you are sitting by the door. However, in that case, you would have to go out of your way to get hurt, and in that case, it would probably be easier to simply climb out.

I would guess that the most likely injury on a sky ride would occur when you're getting in or out of the cabin. Of course, you mostly likely wouldn't die from your injuries like you would if the cabin fell fifty feet to the ground if the cable breaks.