2 accidents with in hours

[BURTONxBLUNT]

Texas Giant Inncident

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/22889634/six-flags-woman-died-while-riding-texas-giant

Shoot The Rapids Inncident

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/article/4308286?utm_content=buffer966f4&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Buffer

[BBH]

Crazy to hear about Texas Giant, thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families and victims of both accidents.

Not sure who's to blame on the NTG crash, would it be Gerstlauer, the one who designed the car, or RMC, who designed the car's operating system?

[DejaVu2001]

I wasn't aware RMC had anything at all to do with New Texas Giant's trains. I thought it was all Gerstlauer. Either way, I'm really interested to hear the details about both incidents. These are both things that should be absolutely impossible.

[Sharon29060]

Here's more information about the incident on New Texas Giant:
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013 ... exas.html/

It says she didn't feel safe since her restrains only "clicked" once, while everyone else is like: "click,click,click". And she was sitting next to her son.

Both incidents are very sad. My thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims.

[Goku1910]

^I've been informed that Texas Giants restraints don't click, they're similar to V2 and Giant Drop....even X-Flight's don't click. The ride computer determines if it's locked and the train would not send if it wasn't registered as locked.

[PfightingPolish]

First off, of course, thoughts and prayers go out to all affected.

The Cedar Point incident strikes me as a kind of a fluke thing. A rollback, I would think, would require a few different things to fail on a chain-lift style ride. It will be interesting to learn more, but given that it appears that ride uses a chain-style lift as opposed to the ramps used by our park, I'm not too concerned about Yankee Clipper or Logger's Run.

I'm far more concerned about what happened in Texas. First off, this seems like a worst-case scenario relative to PR. It has been reported the woman stated she didn't feel securely in the ride. Her son had to watch it happen. She was a first-time park guest. The story is sensational and eye-catching.

Furthermore, it's those kinds of guests that keep parks afloat. Us message board-posting enthusiasts will not only go, but will also finagle every discount and the park really won't make that much money off us. It's the folks that only go once or twice who usually buy food & souvenirs, are willing to pay full price, etc. And it's the people like this who see stories like this and decide not to go.

It effects us enthusiasts, too, because we all loved the idea of the Texas Giant when it was reconstructed -- the speed, the overbanked turns, and the possibilities it opened up for other classic wood coasters to be not only revived but revitalized. Now, even though this was an isolated incident, you know the questions will be asked: "Too fast? Too dangerous? Too daring?" No OTS restraints on Giant ... bet that changes now, and might change on other similar coasters. And you have to wonder if parks will be less likely to consider such construction, given the PR.

Part of me is really mad at the Texas Giant staff. I tread carefully here, speaking as a 5'6", 170 lb. guy with a girlfriend who's 5'2" and tiny. I have no problems fitting into rides. This was a larger woman, though, and you simply have to take extra steps to ensure larger individuals are secured in rides. We've had the discussion before about uncomfortable restraints for larger individuals, and I've been in lines where I've seen people asked to get off rides because they're simply too large. Now, because it sounds like one staffer was negligent, we might all have to endure OTS restraints, longer waits for more thorough restraint checks and, perhaps, more consternation over size limits for rides and whether or not they're discriminatory. Obviously, that pales in comparison to a life lost, but it will also effect all of us negatively in much smaller ways as well.

This is bad all-around -- a nightmare scenario for Six Flags. Will they recover? Sure. There have been other park incidents before and parks have survived. But I feel like this sets the franchise back a lot in that it will force them to reexamine priorities and, in the end, probably have to inconvenience guests more in the name of safety. One error on the part of one staffer on one ride costs one woman her entire life, a group of kids their mother and, perhaps, a little bit of the joy of the experience for all of us. Ugh.

[DejaVu2001]

This is absolutely not an issue with the Ride Operations staff. The guest saying that she didn't think it was down far enough is not relevant. Guests freak out about their restraints all the time. If it doesn't move when the op checks it, and the control system says it is down far enough, there is no reason for the op to do anything.

The trains on Texas Giant have sensors in the cars that verify each restraint is pushed down to the minimum safe distance. If every single seat on that train does not have a green light, the train will not dispatch. This is either something that went wrong after the train left the station, which would be a maintenance issue, or the rider's size/shape allowed her to come out of the closed restraint with no failure. If the second scenario is true, then it is Gerstlauer's fault and they will need to change the point at which the green light comes on, or completely redesign the lap bar or the seat.

[Goku1910]

^There was also a witness that stated it only clicked once. But you told me that Texas Giants restraints don't click at all....That just adds to what you just said.

[PfightingPolish]

This is absolutely not an issue with the Ride Operations staff. The guest saying that she didn't think it was down far enough is not relevant. Guests freak out about their restraints all the time. If it doesn't move when the op checks it, and the control system says it is down far enough, there is no reason for the op to do anything.

First off, you're going to have to get the Court of Public Opinion to understand that, which is easier said than done the way the story has been framed thus far.

Secondly, control systems sometimes give faulty results, too. Something gets stuck and gives a sensor a bad readout. A kid sticks a piece of gum someplace he shouldn't at the end of a ride and it messes things up. At the end of the day, it's up to the human beings that run the rides and systems to make the call. A second physical check of the lapbar takes four seconds and, with a larger woman, it's not a bad idea.

Even if she seemed irrational, even just an attitude that's more reassuring than the "nonchalant" one described would have made this seem a lot less worse from a PR point of view. A thought-out response would have framed this more like an accident. As it is, it looks (to most) more like negligence, and the media will look for any excuse to frame it that way because that will draw better ratings. Employee attitude effects guest experience greatly and becomes even more important when there's an incident. Given the poor attitudes I've seen at times in our park (not all staffers, but many), that part of the story seems very believable.

Unless we find out she did something very specific to cause the issue, it sounds like the staff didn't put themselves in a good position here, and now, we might all have consequences as a result.

[NightRider785]

Back in the day when I was a coaster op, if someone was scared/nervous or even mentioned "is this thing down far enough?", I always grabbed it firmly, pushed and pulled pretty hard 2 or 3 times, smiled and said "You're in tight!". Made the guest feel better, and the next person in line probably as well, seeing that it was checked extra when questioned. It's not too hard to show guests that you care about their safety. Had they had a similar attitude in Texas, if nothing else the public wouldn't have had bad things to say about the ride kids after such a tragedy.

[[jonrev]]

Smiler at Alton Towers also threw a bolt and suffered a track separation this morning.

[Ilovthevu']

It seems to me that the most reasonable explanation of how this happened is that the bar must have been green for the ride to be operational, but it probably was too up, and that's how she fell out. The lady was just too overweight to be on that type of ride, and the lap bar was just way too up were it wasn't on her lap anymore.

That ride really looks too intense for someone of her weight to be on it without an over the restraint harness. I'm not good with weights, but if I had to guess she was somewhere between 300 & 350 pounds. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's my guess. http://i.imgur.com/wrYVfLv.png I know seatbelts are terrible, and take time, but if this lady had a seatbelt on (if they ride had them), she would have lived.

If that's the real reason how this happened, than what Gerstauler has to do is to lower the lock in for the bars as to when they become green for each one. They probably are going to add seatbelts. Hopefully retractable seatbelts!! I hope they also change the Rattler ones too at Fiesta Texas because I would imagine that's closed too now. I think it's only going to be time when you see Raging Bull / Nitro / Goliath & Titan / Goliath (Magic Mountain) to add seatbelts. Six Flags has had problems with Superman Ride of Steel, and than now this.

[NightRider785]

I'd be sad if Bull ever got seat belts :-/

[Sharon29060]

The Dodgem' Cars ride at Camden Park went up in flames.
http://www.wowktv.com/story/22893877/cr ... amden-park

4 amusement park incidents in a weekend! That's not good

[Jerrykoala2112]

Let's not forget the Skyhawk accident a few days ago. What's going on with the amusement industry.

I still don't understand how Shoot the Rapids's accident happened.

[PfightingPolish]

Back in the day when I was a coaster op, if someone was scared/nervous or even mentioned "is this thing down far enough?", I always grabbed it firmly, pushed and pulled pretty hard 2 or 3 times, smiled and said "You're in tight!". Made the guest feel better, and the next person in line probably as well, seeing that it was checked extra when questioned.

Good work. Unfortunately, it sounds like that didn't happen here. If it had, someone might have said to the reporters, "I saw them check her a second time. They did all they could." Instead, the story is being spun the exact way Six Flags doesn't want it to be spun.

[Stoogie]

No belts on Bull please! That would kill the fun of the ride IMHO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PfightingPolish]

No belts on Bull please! That would kill the fun of the ride IMHO.

The only ride I've ever been on that freaked me out a smidge about actually falling out was Goliath — which is kinda part of what makes it awesome. The seats on Goliath are smooth hard plastic and, at the point represented by 1:26 in this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqpowPCTBAM, I could feel myself slipping towards the left as we went into that slow banked turn (this was in the leftmost seat, mind you). My khaki slacks provided no traction. Even with bars and belts, the feeling of moving in your seat while you're on a coaster is freaky.

If Bull hasn't had any problems for 15 years, though, there shouldn't be a need for greater restraint.

Part of what concerns me about Giant, though, is that this happened within fairly close to its grand reopening. Yes, there were a lot of rides in the two seasons it had been open before this, but it's still relatively new in terms of roller coaster lifespan and steel-on-wood is still a fairly new development in coaster technology. There's no true inversion on Giant, but there are 90+ degree overbanked turns. If anything holding anything isn't secure, and you tip the container past 90 degrees for an extended period of time, what's inside will fall out. Not sure if it was on one of those turns where the woman fell out, but it wouldn't surprise me. Part of what made the new Giant cool were the cars (literally cars) and no OTS restraints. Gotta think they'll look at putting those on now.

My fear is what other rides they'll force OTS restraints onto as well, and if this will quell construction of steel-on-wood coasters with these sort of features (overbanked turns and full inversions), which, honestly, were a neat new development, looked pretty cool and would have been something I wouldn't have minded seeing at our park (perhaps not on Viper or Eagle, which both work well as traditional woodies, but maybe on a new superstructure). Think about how daring Son of Beast was, then how long it took for us to see inversions tried on wood roller coasters again when SOB was, well, an SOB. And, again, a little bit of TLC on the part of the ops staff might have avoided this altogether, or at least made it look a lot better. Tsk, tsk.

[tribar]

^ I assumed it happened on one of the hills but you may be right

[Ilovthevu']

The only ride I've ever been on that freaked me out a smidge about actually falling out was Goliath

Mine would be a ride that was at the same park. It was the newer X2. That ride to me is too adjustable in a way because the thing goes up and down. I was most scared on that ride than I've ever been on any ride in my life of me falling out of the thing. It's really only a harness, and nothing to keep your bottom part of you in place. I couldn't even get the adjustments right for me getting on the thing with the harness going up and down. The employees had to help me. I like the ride, but I really don't trust that ride. It's weird though because I originally tried X, and I didn't even feel like there was anything wrong with me having any chance of falling out of the thing, but after last year, I'm really scared of that ride though if I want to ride it again. It's not that I don't enjoy that ride, but I don't feel safe on that ride.

I think the only other ride that has worried me before was probably Superman on the lifthill, but that was just a fear of heights thing, and not really worrying me as much as X2 during the entire ride. The Superman lifthill doesn't bother me now. It bothered me mabye the 1st or 2nd time, but that's about it.

Besides the regular park rides, I really think that water stuff has so much more chances of getting injured. I have been on so many amusement park rides, and carnival rides, and haven't gotten any injuries. For water stuff though yes I haven't gotten injured terribly (but still a little bit), I was at a waterpark called Racing Rapids, and the employee sent another person down while I was in the slide, and they went right into me. At Hurricane Harbor, I scraped my knee on that stupid Wahoo Racer slide. I fell out of the tube on that bowl slide in the bowl part (not doing anything wrong) which is really Great America's fault because they should have single tubes, and double tubes for tube slides. Instead, they force everyone into double tubes when people are going single. Every other non Six Flags park seems to have double tubes, and single tubes. I go to Magic Waters, or the waterpark in Key Lime Cove. I remember riding in a single tube at Disney Blizzard Beach for tube slide. I really think the only reason they started having only single tubes and only double tubes is because they don't want Lazy River people taking their tube, and using them on the tube slide. I also got elbowed in the face by someone in the wavepool recently.

So, in conclussion more injuries will probably occur in the waterpark than at carnivals or in amusement parks. I find that ironic because the news always makes it out to be that amusement parks or carnivals are more unsafe than waterparks. You barely hear them saying bad things about waterparks. A guy had a heart attack at Hurricane Harbor, and something happened on the Tornado. And yes, maybe the person on the Tornado was doing something wrong, but I just think that waterparks are not as safe as amusement parks / carnivals. I will still go to waterparks, amusement parks, and carnivals, but that's how I really feel.

[PfightingPolish]

Mine would be a ride that was at the same park. It was the newer X2.

We skipped X2 after a bad experience on Green Lantern. For the most part, on a ZacSpin, you're always supposed to be facing forward. Somehow, though, our car had some sort of malfunction and swung us pretty violently throughout, leaving us facing upwards on top of the car at the end of the ride, where we proceeded to be stuck for about 10 minutes.

After that experience left my girlfriend teary-eyed, I wasn't going to even try to convince her to get on a coaster that also spins you around like that, but is much bigger. Kind of want to try X2 someday, just because I want to say I did with its high scores. But it wasn't going to be that day and I don't envision us going back soon, sadly.

[Ilovthevu']

^I think that Green Lantern ride is really flawed because for example you have 2 a "little" bigger adults on one side of the ride, and than you have 2 - 80 lb kids on the other side, and than the ride is just not right. 160 lbs on one side, and 400 on the other... I had a terrible time on that ride also, but it's not that I didn't feel safe. It was just a horrible ride because the balance was not right at all! That ride is just such a waste of money. For that money which was about 7 million at another park (I don't know the official amount for the Magic Mountain one), why not just buy a Zipper? That capacity is awful on that coaster, and capacity on a Zipper is 24 per ride which is probably even higher capacity than the Zacspin coaster.

I'm just sort of amazed how much Six Flags or Cedar Fair spends on getting a ride that is so similar to less than $100,000 Zipper ride. They bought these Top Spins, X, and a Zacspin to sort of replicate the Zipper's motions, but yet how much money did they spend on these rides compared to a Zipper? That's part of the reason why I would NEVER invest in an amusement park. They add too many rides that cost millions and millions of dollars every single year. It really doesn't make sense. On top of that, Magic Mountain doesn't even need this coaster, and it doesn't need the Throttle coaster. The park needs more flats, but that's besides the point. Some years to me, you have to go cheaper and a used carnival ride that you can refurbish is the way to go.

[w00dland]

Mine would be a ride that was at the same park. It was the newer X2.

We skipped X2 after a bad experience on Green Lantern. For the most part, on a ZacSpin, you're always supposed to be facing forward. Somehow, though, our car had some sort of malfunction and swung us pretty violently throughout, leaving us facing upwards on top of the car at the end of the ride, where we proceeded to be stuck for about 10 minutes.

After that experience left my girlfriend teary-eyed, I wasn't going to even try to convince her to get on a coaster that also spins you around like that, but is much bigger. Kind of want to try X2 someday, just because I want to say I did with its high scores. But it wasn't going to be that day and I don't envision us going back soon, sadly.

This post makes me a little teary-eyed. X2 is my favorite coaster, and Green Lantern is one of my least favorites.

[PfightingPolish]

This post makes me a little teary-eyed. X2 is my favorite coaster, and Green Lantern is one of my least favorites.

[shrug]. I was kind of hoping to find out what X2 was all about that day, since it is so different from anything else. But when you only have one day ...

I've generally found my girlfriend doesn't like rides that flip you over at height. She hates King Chaos (I personally enjoyed it). She was not a fan of St. Louis' Xcalibur (another one I really liked). The experience on Green Lantern made her upset. I had a hunch she wasn't going to be all that keen on X2, and after the Green Lantern experience, I wasn't going to push too hard.

Someday, we'll go back and maybe then I'll try and do some convincing. She got me to do the drop tower in St. Louis (with my eyes closed the whole time) and I hate drop towers. She owes me one.

[NightRider785]

So has there been any update on the Texas incident, or is it still unknown of the actual reason for what happened?