Two guests were smacked with debris after a cable came loose on the "Xcelerator" roller coaster at Knotts Berry Farm in Orange County, park officials confirmed Wednesday.
A 12-year-old boy suffered lacerations to the leg and a male adult complained of back pain, and both were sent to a local hospital. No other injuries were reported. A spokesman for the park confirmed that a cable came loose on the ride.
A YouTube video of the incident shows two people riding the Xcelerator, clutching the safety harness and screaming -- when suddenly debris flies through the screen and hits them. Both riders seem shocked, and one puts his hand to his head.
The accident is currently being investigated by the Department of Safety and Health and Knott’s Berry Farm.
Park officials said they check the ride every day and the correct cable was attached. Unfortunately their safety guide doesn't mention what to do when a cable breaks. They released the following statement:
Buena Park, Calif. (September 16, 2009) – Two guests were transported to the hospital today when a cable came loose from the Xcelerator roller coaster at Knott's Berry Farm. The incident caused lacerations to one 12 year old guest who came in contact with the cable. A male adult guest complained of back pain. All other guests were asked for a statement and released.
Knott’s officials immediately suspended operation of Xcelerator. The ride is being inspected by Knott's Berry Farm and DOSH. The ride will remain closed until a full investigation can be performed.
For an FYI, the link does contains the video (no blood or anything graphic) and the video has been pulled from youtube.
That is very scary situation. Knotts is ultra lucky something worse did not happen.
With the ride itself, the kids seat moved, which is insane. Also, you have to wonder about the Intamin cables as this is now the 2nd time this has happened to an Intamin ride with riders on it (plus the times without rides on.)
If you're talking about being thrown forward thats from the cable breaking. A very similar thing happens if you ride Dragster in the middle and don't hold yourself up on the seat.
If you're talking about the end, he's screaming and trying to pull on the harness because his leg is burned from either a metal shard or fluid.
It's a very scary situation, and even creepier that they caught it on film.
It looks like the seat moves, could just be a trick to the eye, but it really looks like the seat moved forward, like the bolts were stripped when the cable snapped and it moved up after it leveled off after that rollback.
Universal Orlando Mechanical Engineer Marathon down, Goofy to go.
Danhockey04 wrote:It looks like the seat moves, could just be a trick to the eye, but it really looks like the seat moved forward, like the bolts were stripped when the cable snapped and it moved up after it leveled off after that rollback.
That is what I was thinking on the kids seat. The the back right (right as in looking at the computer screen) moves up some.
That Looks like it hurt! Wow, What happened to the FORUMS, the entire page loaded XL Fonts/XL images! Sheesh!
This is what Theme Parks Get for buying "Standard Cable A from Joe Bobs Cable Shack" and having there IN HOUSE Mechanics install them, rather then buying Xcelerator Approved Cable from The Ride Manufacture and having THEM install it! You try to cut costs and in the end you pay in a Million Dollar Lawsuit, ya prob would have been cheaper to have Approved Cable from the Ride Builder come and install there cables!
the entire page loaded XL Fonts/XL images! Sheesh!
RBF was updating the boards and they went all DejaVu, should be fine now.
This is what Theme Parks Get for buying "Standard Cable A from Joe Bobs Cable Shack" and having there IN HOUSE Mechanics install them, rather then buying Xcelerator Approved Cable from The Ride Manufacture and having THEM install it!
The park has to used parts approved by the manfacturer as part of the contract when they buy the ride. While I wouldnt be surprised if this was maintenence related, its not because they didnt have the right part.
I think it's probably the parks fault. These cables costs tons of money, and they aren't replaced enough. With Top Thrill, and this ride think of what the ride is doing constantly. It's like snapping the cable (like some people do on that ride at Carowinds), and that hurts the cable much. It's a little different than Deja Vu's cable, but yet I was looking at that cable the last year we had it, and it didn't look that great. I thought in a year or so they needed it replaced (at least the one in the station).
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
The thing with these cables is, Cedar Fair in the past has actively stood by and waited for the cable/wire rope to completely fail before replacing it. I've gotten confirmation in the past, that way back in like 00 or 01 or around there when MF broke it's cable right before their bonus weekends, that they knew the cable was in bad shape and ready to break, they had ordered a new cable and it was sitting in there warehouse and had been sitting there when the cable on the ride broke. They would not replace it until the old one had completely failed. That's also why the ride was only down for about 2 weeks before the cable was replaced and the ride reopened. There is way way more than a 2 week lead time for a new cable of that type. You cant just walk into Joe Bob's House of Wire Ropes and ask for XXXX feet of Y cable, have them despool it, hand you the cut and take it back to the park.
Now I have no confirmation for this one(employee turnover), but you can see the same pattern when TTD broke one of it's ropes. Exact same scenario, the park knew it was ready to go, they ordered a new cable and it sat until the old one failed, and in that case injured riders as well. Then it reopened in about a week or so after that happened, so you know they had one on hand ready to go and they waited for that to break.
I'm nearly positive that somewhere within the bowels of KBF there is a shiny new spool of wire rope sitting there with the ride's name on it. I'm not going to blame Intamin right off the bat for that cause Cedar Fair has a history of this happening. You can't blame the manufacturer for a parks neglect. Also I know the cable was in bad shape cause one of the news articles mentioned that the train was not full. So the entire system wasn't even under a full load when it failed.
I think the far more worrying problem, and this is where the Intamin blame comes into play is the seat failing. I cant think of any scenario where any part of any seat should fail under any circumstance. I don't care if a 400lb man crammed himself into the seat and there was a pile of cable sitting on the track causing the train to come to a dead stop instantly, that should not happen. Let alone with a young and average sized boy sitting in the seat.
Cedar Fair continuing to buy from Intamin really is one of life's mystery's, and I hope the State of CA nails their ass to the wall over this incident, if they did in fact wait for the cable to break before replacing it.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
So let me start with Cedar Fair maintenance is complete ****. Add to that Intamin rides are already more likely to injure/kill riders and it makes for a bad situation.
FParker185 wrote:I think the far more worrying problem, and this is where the Intamin blame comes into play is the seat failing. I cant think of any scenario where any part of any seat should fail under any circumstance. I don't care if a 400lb man crammed himself into the seat and there was a pile of cable sitting on the track causing the train to come to a dead stop instantly, that should not happen. Let alone with a young and average sized boy sitting in the seat.
Some pictures made it to Screamscape today, and I'm trying to figure out if this has anything to do with that seat moving. With that kind of damage on the front of the train, I could easily see something else get knocked out of place. Here's twomore pictures.
Director_Guy wrote:Is it back open yet? It's almost Knott's Scary Farm time and I wanna goooooo.
Looks like it will be lucky to even reopen by the end of the season. That train was damaged heavily, though that wouldn't be too much of an issue, just pull it off and repair it while the others run. However, the brake fins and track were also damaged. They need to closely evaluate that to make sure there is no significant damage so a worse accident won't happen when they do reopen it. Not to mention they need a new cable and someone already posted about the lead time to get a new cable. Add that to the fact that the state run investigation will be very slow (it's the government).
"The report said the snapped cable exhibited "gross amounts of fatigue" and found the force of the accident sheared off 18 of the 20 magnets on the bottom of the coaster cars used for launching and braking."
Yep, sounds like Cedar Fair alright, run it til it breaks, gross amounts of fatigue be damned!
I feel bad for the kid, his injuries were extremely understated.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
