Infographic: Tyre Sampson | ICON Park Free Fall Ride Accident - Logistics
Posted Mar 30, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC
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I work on a ride similar to this and we kick bigger people off all the time. Like more than once per day. Harnesses built like this are the most restrictive. If you have really broad shoulders, the top of the harness will catch and will stop it from reaching the tops of your thighs. If you have a big stomach, the harness will not be able to lower enough for the required contact. Where i work it Must be touching their legs. If not, No ride!!! We have to psychically look at each harness to ensure there is no gap. Obviously. It is so clear that it wasn’t fitting him properly. We are trained to pick up on these things, I can tell who isn’t going to fit before they even sit down. So unnecessary and sad.
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But how could the ride even get going? I mean there are other control systems like a little lamp that shows if the bar is closed or not. Or am I wrong? But how could the ride even start without a secured bar???
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If you watch the full video the ride attendants are saying to their co worker ‘the light was flashing’ or something similar. Which in my experience indicates a harness lock confirmation. I’m not sure what the hell happened.
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Wow. Sounds like your place has good management. That’s great.
It’s kind of sick and sad but I’d show this to your new trainees as to why you need to be relentless. It could save someone.
My Daughter is 14, SKINNY AS 5A RAIL, and we were constantly afraid she’d slip out at Disney or Six-flags. I was screed the whole week.
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I feel like the biggest problem here is that the lock system of this ride clearly does not work correctly if that light really showed green. Staff was probably just trained to look at the lights and we can all sit here and think: he clearly doesn’t fit jn the seat, which makes the gap too large. It’s scary to think we start to believe in technology so much that we won’t question things and use our logic.
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In the video ~ the button light is green (but I dunno how the ride works)
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The guy at the button is standing around talking to people, but you can see Tyre there and another crew member that doesn’t check him
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After he’s fallen, lying on the ground, the manager female, with a radio walks up to button guy and says “did you check him???”
And he said “the light was green”
She said again “but did you check him?”
The video stops there. They are having this conversation while staring at him on the concrete. In any case, the crew are in their early 20’s and they’ll be haunted by this forever.
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Yeah I’ve not seen the video over and over again because it was making me feel physically sick tbf.
But yeah that’s what I’m trying to say that we tend to just go out it’s fine if the light shows green but as here got proven it’s not enough. You need to double check!
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This is what I've been explaining to my family and friends. I have experience working on tower rides, though mainly with lap bars, and I know about a lot of procedures when it comes to larger sized guests. I'm willing to bet none of the ops knew that the restraints were adjusted, rather they were likely just told "these are the seats for larger people." In addition, most of the time, when a larger person scoots all the way to the back of the seat, the restraint can come down lower and be safer than when they just get into the seat and aren't aware of themselves slumping forward (for lap bars, this allows the bar to get underneath the stomach).
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I notice he slipped out of the ride downwards. The safest gravity rides (where I’ve been to 72ft) have at the LEAST a harness and a belted buckle connected to it between the legs. He didn’t have a seatbelt, and because of his weight limit the staff should have seen that it wasn’t properly fitted. So the problem here is the staff at ICON park
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Yea the video of the accident shows the load in process and the people running it aren't going around checking it.
They walk by him and then start talking to another rider about how there are no extra seat belts.
- The video is horrible but all over Twitter. It shows him and others loaded in and waiting. The rise, the drop, him falling out and you hear him land - Then all of the people screaming for an ambulance and wanting to get out asap.... AND AGAIN the ride operators are just standing there.
- You also hear one ride operator ask "did you check him?" ...."the light was green" "But did you check him?"
=(
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So one was have assed trying to do their jobs properly?
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This entire incident is horrible and completely avoidable. I’m not a part of the investigation obviously so idk about if the employees are to blame (seems like at least a contributing factor) but how about this crazy piece of innovation.
A strap that goes between the legs and connects to the over the should harness. They’ve only had that on every ride until the past 5 years with Rip Ride Rocket being the first I noticed, now Velicicoaster at IOA.
I get that A class entertainment venues can probably handle it responsibly but because everyone got a little too comfortable this happened. Stupid, pointless death bring back physical straps on restraints.
Oh yea!? Why isn't there a buckle between the legs?!
But if there had been a belt, it would've shown that he couldn't be on the ride, because it wouldn't have been long enough to connect.
judging by the manual for the ride it was supposed to have them as there was a lot of mention of safety belts in it but it seems they requested it not have them so the manufacturer added a bulletin at the end of the manual stating it didn't need them because the restraints exceeded class 5 level standards... the issue comes in that the sensor for his seat was obviously not set right it should not have been green this high up but simply put simple OTSR belts are extremely common and easy to self buckle that not having them is simply stupid IMHO.
the seatbelt hate for slowing down rides comes from ironically six flags parks having to add seat belts to their RMC's because much like this accident a very large person, far to big to be able to safely be restrained got ejected off and died on the new texas giant at SFOT. crazy part is Gerstlauer made the trains for that just like they made the restraint system for this drop tower for Funtime. but anyways the reason for the slow down on this is they were not designed for them originally so operators cannot easily check them with the lap bars down over them so they need to be able to check the belt then push down the lapbar...
Seems like a critical design flaw for a ride whose direction of motion is straight down and the only thing securing you in the seat is over your shoulders. The downward momentum and sudden decrease in speed, and the inertia of a large, heavy mass not fully restrained means that mass is taking the path of least resistance. Sadly this kid was a statistical outlier that they didn't account for in the design of the ride and the underlying safety mechanisms. Won't be surprised if this ride is shut down permanently (not that anyone will want to ride it after this)
Yea, you’re right.
The downward motion, AND it tilts forward??? They totally blew off the safety for this.
Also the ride was brand new! 3 months.
Honestly the smartest comment I've seen about this situation. How was it possible for a team of ride engineers to not understand the basic principles of physics when they were designing the safety mechanism?
Even if it's "supposed to" lock in at the thighs, the ride still started when this was clearly not the case.
Thanks for making the drawings.
Just a theory and not that it really changes anything. But in hindsight, do you think, there was a chance he could have hold himself in the seat with the pure strength of his arms and hands? Maybe also ask his friend helping to hold him back in the seat?
Or is it really unrealistic.
That came up in another thread and the thought amongst everyone was that he could not.
He’s 340 pounds, moving at 75mph. His weight stopped that quickly can triple under the force. No one, no matter how strong you are, could hold on.
We don’t know if he tried to hold on, but in the video he’s thrown out fast.
Law of inertia: …also called Newton's first law, postulate in physics that, if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force.
Last, if you look at the shape of his body in pictures. He has a pear shape with the lower half of his body being double the size of the chest area the harness is supposed to hold, so that part of his body wasn’t even held in.
But the seat was up right when he got in and probably thought it would ok.
…..until it tilted forward at the top and he felt the bottom half of his body slipping down out over the horn before the drop. That’s when he panicked and started freaking and said to his friends “guys if I don’t make it tell my mommy and daddy I love them”
Then it dropped, pushing him UP into his seat (like a car going 75mph in 3 sec. Then stopped like it hit a brick wall, pushing him down…
The horn did nothing to hold him since he was basically sitting on it.
They have even added them on rides like diamondback at kings island. That ride is amazing but the only thing that scared me was how much airtime hills there are and no fail system of the lap bar comes up.
I have had my lap bar pop up on the racer where you also have a seatbelt so it was no big deal I just pulled it back down.
There are always fail systems. But you can't see them. Typically for hydraulic restraints there are either two or 3 seperate pistons while a single one would do the job. There's nothing safer than hydraulic restraints with 3 pistons like on Taron. Not only 3 pistons have to fail but also all the sensors that monitor them
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