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Accident at Alton Towers

david morton said:
But if the park didn't have a procedure/checklist in place that explicitly said things like "before restarting ride count all the trains" then they are culpable - the park shouldn't be relying on ride-ops common-sense thats the point.

Obviously common sense should have kicked in, so someone was being sloppy, but the point is that the park procedures allowed them to be sloppy.
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I'm not disputing that legally Merlin are at fault, they are 100% culpable in the eyes of the law and not having procedures in place has led to the incident. But that engineer who overrode the safety mechanism without checking it was safe to do so directly caused the crash, opportunity to be sloppy or not, the fault lies there.
 
DelPiero said:
david morton said:
But if the park didn't have a procedure/checklist in place that explicitly said things like "before restarting ride count all the trains" then they are culpable - the park shouldn't be relying on ride-ops common-sense thats the point.

Obviously common sense should have kicked in, so someone was being sloppy, but the point is that the park procedures allowed them to be sloppy.
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I'm not disputing that legally Merlin are at fault, they are 100% culpable in the eyes of the law and not having procedures in place has led to the incident. But that engineer who overrode the safety mechanism without checking it was safe to do so directly caused the crash, opportunity to be sloppy or not, the fault lies there.
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Yes, I agree he's sloppy but the court has shown that company policy was not on making sure the track was safe but on making sure the ride wasn't shut down too long. It clearly got to the point where simply starting the ride up again was routine. This fault was happening regularly so he just did what he always did and got it going again - just, unfortunately, it was a genuine problem this time.
 
Excellent. That's the end of this story, then.

Time to move on.
 
^ Guaranteed there will still be ridiculous stories about people being left dangling in the air for a while yet. It'll break down at the start of next season; the tabloid stories will be the same.
 
Hopefully.

Think the culture of paying bonuses for low downtime is absolutely wrong.

Still disgusted at it taking 17 minutes for the vultures stood watching on to actuall call 999.
 
^^ If you were a park guest though, would you not assume that the staff were dealing with it? I'm pretty sure I would.
 
gavin said:
^^ If you were a park guest though, would you not assume that the staff were dealing with it? I'm pretty sure I would.
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Yes, I would assume the park had a procedure for this sort of thing - including where to park the emergency vehicles. In fact, I'd be wary of phoning emergency services in case I got in the way or caused confusion.
 
furie said:
The courts don't care though because (like Salmonella Suzie/Steven above), they weren't told how to do things properly.

So even though we know that they are ultimately responsible for the accident - it simple wouldn't have happened if they had been doing their jobs properly - the park still has to take the blame. Blame in these cases always travels upwards before heading back down.
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I think Furie has hit the nail on the head overall. It's the job of management to ensure all staff are fully trained and working correctly.

However, that's where a question of conduct vs capability comes into play. Is the person at fault capable of doing the job you've set them? If they haven't been trained or they have something stopping them from doing the job, then the answer here would be no. If the person has been trained and still makes an error, then it becomes a question of conduct only. They know full well what to do and have chosen to go against it for whatever reason, which is where liability is normally taken away from the company and placed on the individual.

I noticed in the BBC article, it says:

The engineers looked but could not see the stalled car, thought the computer was wrong, and over-rode the stop.
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That to me is completely the engineers at fault. They knew the protocol of looking at the computer and being able to see where the trains were through that. He identified that the train was there, but thought it was an error of the computer and then did the opposite of what he will have been taught to do. I assume that the engineer in question would have been signed off on The Smiler, meaning Merlin have the documentation to prove that he is fully trained on the ride, so this was an issue of conduct. The computer told him something, exactly as it's supposed to, and that led to an error as he ignored it.

Think of it this way. You order a cheeseburger from McDonald's and the person who boxes them up looks at their computer, which tells them you want a cheeseburger...but they swear you said Fillet of Fish (Or whatever it is) so they box that up for you and hand it over instead. Who's at fault here? The management will have told the staff member to do whatever it says on the computer, as would the management at Alton Towers. There will have been a few times where a manager has specifically stated to give the customer a Fillet of Fish because they ordered wrong, but unless a manager is involved, the staff member who actively goes against the computer is at error. Quite a weird comparison to make, but that was the most everyday way I could think to put it.

I'm thinking that Merlin have not tried to go down this route as it'll be much better for business in the public eye to admit fault and try and win back public opinion rather than to individually place the blame and drag it out for as long as possible.
 
Exactly. Okay, as stated above, it might not have been management's fault. It was the Ride Op's. Personally, I would love to just contact the victims and tell them how wrong they were as the fine they wanted was ridiculous.

I was standing at a KFC once, and I ordered a regular Chicken Popcorn with fries. They got the order wrong and I ended up with two fries, no chicken. Was it management's fault? No. Was it the cashier's fault? Absolutely. So, if Vicky, Dan, Leah or Joe are reading this, you guys are hella wrong, it wasn't the park's fault at all, and you guys were overreacting. Granted, it was a bad moment in theme-park history, but seriously. Another example:

A gamer was waiting for his train. He got pushed onto the tracks, and said train was travelling slow enough to stop. It didn't, though, and his arm had to be amputated. Did the train company get sued £1.25 mil? No. He accepted his new replacement prosthetic and got on with life. Okay? Glad that's over with.
 
Flyer man, couldn't disagree more with what you are saying.
Merlin admitted it was at fault, it pleaded guilty, and accepted the massive fine with good grace.
The victims are wrong to blame Merlin???
It wasn't the parks fault???
Sorry, but I put your IQ lower than your coaster count.
 
rob666 said:
Flyer man, couldn't disagree more with what you are saying.
Merlin admitted it was at fault, it pleaded guilty, and accepted the massive fine with good grace.
The victims are wrong to blame Merlin???
It wasn't the parks fault???
Sorry, but I put your IQ lower than your coaster count.
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This is amazing ah hahahhaha.

Read for filth <3
 
There's a .zip folder at the bottom of this page http://press.hse.gov.uk/2016/alton-towers-owners-fined-over-smiler-crash/ that contains the CCTV footage and the expert witness report that details exactly what went wrong and why. Warning, it's 250 pages of the driest reading you've ever seen unless you do this for a living! Unfortunately it's been redacted to remove statements, names and other identifiable/confidential information. So appendices 1 and 2 are blank.

It's crazy that the empty train sat at the top of the batwing for 20 seconds before rolling back into the valley! If the wind had been blowing in the other direction this probably would never have happened.

Interesting to note that no issues were found with the operators or their working practices. (p21, pa. 48) It was 2 different engineers that weren't aware/told of the 5th train being added to the system and it was one of these that cleared the block, clearing this block is what allowed the full train to be sent under "evacuation mode", supposedly to get the riders off safely and get all the trains back into the station. (p5, pa. 10 - p7, pa. 15) He states that the ride and control system itself were robustly designed with an emphasis of "failing to safety". (p. 18, pa. 41) He wasn't happy with the training of engineers, with a lot of it being observational with little to no formal training.(p22, pa. 52)

He lists the errors that lead to the crash from page 25, paragraph 54. It seems 2 engineers weren't told about the 5th train, they didn't check the log book (because there was no official procedure to compel them to), so they were unaware of the 5th train. Having seen 3 trains in the station/brakes and the 4th train at the top of the lift, the engineer was satisfied he knew where all 4 trains were and cleared the block without checking the track because he felt there was no need because he had already accounted for all the trains he was aware of. Not to mention that he was under financial pressure to get the ride back open as quick as possible, with bonuses offered for minimal downtime and clocks in the op cabin to keep track of up/downtime.

All in all, a bit of a ****.
 
Sorry, but if my IQ was lower than my coaster count, then:

dis how me talk

Sorry, but I'm actually defending Merlin. If you have a problem with that, take it private.
 
TheFlyerMan1 said:
Sorry, but if my IQ was lower than my coaster count, then:

dis how me talk

Sorry, but I'm actually defending Merlin. If you have a problem with that, take it private.
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Why can't you understand that they don't need defending?
To blame the victims is terrible! Yes Vicky did milk the situation, but so what. Merlin have claimed full responsibility so what are you defending them from exactly?

I really don't think a company who's just been fined £5million really gives a **** that "theflyerman1" thinks it's unfair and the victims are terrible people.
 
I'm not saying everybody is at fault. I'm saying that maybe Vicky should pipe her large gob down and stop making the incident all about her and only her.
 
TheFlyerMan1 said:
I'm not saying everybody is at fault. I'm saying that maybe Vicky should pipe her large gob down and stop making the incident all a-:xcensoredx:bout her.
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She almost lost her bloody life due to incompetence of the staff that day! Yes she doesn't need to go to the papers all the time, but if she does, why does it effect you so personally that you have all this hate for her?
 
owentaylor121 said:
TheFlyerMan1 said:
I'm not saying everybody is at fault. I'm saying that maybe Vicky should pipe her large gob down and stop making the incident all a-:xcensoredx:bout her.
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She almost lost her bloody life due to incompetence of the staff that day! Yes she doesn't need to go to the papers all the time, but if she does, why does it effect you so personally that you have all this hate for her?
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It's not my fault that I hate inconsiderate, selfish idiots like her. I'm annoyed that it happened, I feel sorry for the victims, but for people who say it's all about them, I take a strong loathing towards.
 
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