Accident at Alton Towers

[mouse]

I think all of this added press will have a lasting effect on Alton's image and visitor numbers. Had it just been the Smiler accident reported it would soon blow over and people's perception of the park wouldn't change as greatly. The press seem to be really going for Alton and are trying to present it as an unsafe park by picking up on small incidents and blowing them out of proportion.

 

[cjbrandy]

^ And it seems to be working as the British GP are fairly impressionable. Ive heard many times now the GP say stupid things like "Im not riding (coaster name) now because its probably unsafe"

Are the American GP as impressionable by sensationalist stories? I would think not since its such a vast country in comparison to the UK with a far, far lower population density.

 

[Hyde]

We're impressionable by sensationalist stories in general.

The most recent accident that springs to mind in terms of catching national spotlight is the 2013 New Texas Giant death. Obviously, this turned out to be operator error for allowing an overweight woman to ride, but still made national headlines on an otherwise slow story day. While it was a hot story for a week or two (you can see the spike in viewership on CF's POV of NTG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKOmxOsTx2g), it did subside, with no lasting impact.

In turn, I would not anticipate this accident to provide any lasting damage to Alton Towers.

 

[Rankle07]

Operators should do announcements, but there's a 100 reasons why they don't. Some don't care. Some don't think. Some just hate using the mic. But in other cases, the operator might be distracted by having to inform relevant people by phone of what is going on. Or by their attendants who lack the common sense to figure themselves out and go to the operator every 5 minutes. Breakdowns and other operational issues can be stressful and it's easy to forget the "non-essential" stuff over all the trained procedures you have to follow.

Out of curiosity, if there is a breakdown, who out of the ride operators gets told about what is happening and in what detail? For example, i can image that the person at the control desk will know all about what is going on, but do the operators who are managing that rides queue line get told all the info as well?

Please excuse me if its an obvious answer .

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I think what's more strange is Towers only using 1 train on Nemesis, such things are rarely heard of even during off-peak days...

Thorpe are equally as bad for the adding trains but saying it's down to technical stuff... Been the situation for years really, and I doubt it'll change much even after all the stuff... I think it's probably part and parcel of the "don't tell guests what the issue is" thing too, apparently too much information is a bad thing, though I had no problem in telling guests over 3 years why Fury's lift hill wobbles like mad...

Trying to remember if it was ever announced on Fury in regards to adding/taking off trains, although since it was quite clear what was going on from the queueline, it wasn't as essential to announce it publically what was going on... I guess it looks bad at the UK parks because an engineer is required, where most other parks just add/subtract at will... I remember Katun gaining it's second train out of nowhere a few years ago which took me by much surprise at the time...

 

[SilverArrow]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... ly-9439980

:/ Wondered whether this was going to crop up. Weird quote about her not bashing amusement parks or fairs, maybe I am reading it wrong but is she saying that theme parks are worse?

Sent from my XT1039 using Tapatalk

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Operators should do announcements, but there's a 100 reasons why they don't. Some don't care. Some don't think. Some just hate using the mic. But in other cases, the operator might be distracted by having to inform relevant people by phone of what is going on. Or by their attendants who lack the common sense to figure themselves out and go to the operator every 5 minutes. Breakdowns and other operational issues can be stressful and it's easy to forget the "non-essential" stuff over all the trained procedures you have to follow.

Out of curiosity, if there is a breakdown, who out of the ride operators gets told about what is happening and in what detail? For example, i can image that the person at the control desk will know all about what is going on, but do the operators who are managing that rides queue line get told all the info as well?

Please excuse me if its an obvious answer .

It depends, but usually even the op won't know past the basics of how it affects them. Usually staff are only told what actually concerns them - like, for example, if it has the potential to take ages and requires a queue evacuation. But typically no. The less ride staff know, the less can be leaked to guests.

 

[Hixee]

Operators should do announcements, but there's a 100 reasons why they don't. Some don't care. Some don't think. Some just hate using the mic. But in other cases, the operator might be distracted by having to inform relevant people by phone of what is going on. Or by their attendants who lack the common sense to figure themselves out and go to the operator every 5 minutes. Breakdowns and other operational issues can be stressful and it's easy to forget the "non-essential" stuff over all the trained procedures you have to follow.

Out of curiosity, if there is a breakdown, who out of the ride operators gets told about what is happening and in what detail? For example, i can image that the person at the control desk will know all about what is going on, but do the operators who are managing that rides queue line get told all the info as well?

Please excuse me if its an obvious answer .

It depends, but usually even the op won't know past the basics of how it affects them. Usually staff are only told what actually concerns them - like, for example, if it has the potential to take ages and requires a queue evacuation. But typically no. The less ride staff know, the less can be leaked to guests.

I've never actually thought about that. How much information does the control panel usually reveal (to the normal ride-ops)? Can they see all the errors, but some they can't act on without the engineers present? Or is there a point when the severity of the error just causes the system to display a "get the engineer" message?

 

[Hyde]

^ I asked that question to a rides friend once upon a time, his answer was a mix of the two. Depending on the ride, there can be error readouts (either a warning light or text read out) that signals a problem. Sometimes the error is descriptive of what exactly is going wrong, other times it is a vague warning. Either way, mechanics are always called in to check it out.

Over time and days, weeks, and months of ride operation, ride ops tend to learn everything that will go wrong with a ride. So even if there is a non-descript error message, the ride op will most likely know what the cause and solution is. Even still, this is something that isn't shared with guests, as Joey mentioned: the less you "know", the better.

 

[Snoo]

^ I asked that question to a rides friend once upon a time, his answer was a mix of the two. Depending on the ride, there can be error readouts (either a warning light or text read out) that signals a problem. Sometimes the error is descriptive of what exactly is going wrong, other times it is a vague warning. Either way, mechanics are always called in to check it out.

Over time and days, weeks, and months of ride operation, ride ops tend to learn everything that will go wrong with a ride. So even if there is a non-descript error message, the ride op will most likely know what the cause and solution is. Even still, this is something that isn't shared with guests, as Joey mentioned: the less you "know", the better.

The less you know will always be the route they take. 90% of people are stupid and even something like "error on lap bar in row 2" is "OMG WE WOULD HAVE DIED IF WE GOT ON!"

 

[gavin]

Ride ops are barely above burger flippers in the grand scheme of theme park operations.

Sure, they'll pick things up along the way, but the idea that they're in any way experts with regards to the ride tech is crap.

Those jobs are all seasonal, minimum wage and by their very nature designed as summer jobs, ie students who have no interest in the industry.

Feel free to get offended if you're a ride op, but them's the facts.

 

[Slayed]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/alton-towers-smiler-crash-family-9439980

:/ Wondered whether this was going to crop up.

Classic journalistic response to a rare incident - find the poor sods who last had it happen to them and wave a microphone in their face.

They have got a point in that if safety can realistically be improved then it should be, but as we know it doesn't mean thrill rides are inherently unsafe.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

In response to Hixee - I don't know, probably depends on the ride and probably even varies between, because I bet some of the same rides use different control panel displays?

It probably depends what the fault is, like you and Hyde guess. From what i understand it tends to be quite vague.


In sort of related news, a guy I spoke to today who is part of the fire service in Kent was saying that Dreamland has had a couple of small fires recently and the press is going mad about it. He was frustrated that people can't see that small fires are super common and its not a big deal. People keep saying the place is unsafe and shouldn't open in the papers, apparently.

Now, to me as someone who knows very little about fires, it sounds scary if Dreamland "keep having them", it just puts this all into perspective, and why now people are freaking out over small technical probs at Alton.

 

[ems991]

That's interesting as living in Kent and being subjected to the local radio every day at work, I obviously end up hearing a lot about dreamland. I wouldn't say that the press have been jumping on these fires that negatively, more in an is this going to impact on the opening of the park as they have really been building the grand opening itself up over the last year. Yes the fires are getting reported but its more a breaking news there's been a fire at dreamland *five minutes late* it turns out it was a small fire unrelated to any rides etc no major damage has been caused.

I wouldn't have a clue what they're writing in the papers though!

 

[SaiyanHajime]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/alton-towers-smiler-crash-family-9439980

:/ Wondered whether this was going to crop up.

Classic journalistic response to a rare incident - find the poor sods who last had it happen to them and wave a microphone in their face.

They have got a point in that if safety can realistically be improved then it should be, but as we know it doesn't mean thrill rides are inherently unsafe.

The thing about the Hydro accident is that it wouldn't have happened had staff checked the restraints.

Hayley was sitting on top of the lap bar - and we can call her an idiot for doing that all we like, but the reality is she was on a fun day out, probably excited and not completely paying attention. I have heard both enthusiasts AND rides engineers talk about how silly it is that staff have to check every bar, because on a lot of rides if one is down they all must be, or in other cases the computer notifies if they are not shut - but this is why. It's less about actually checking to make sure they are locked or tight enough and more about making sure people are in them correctly.

The problem is - where do you draw the line...? You have to go to reasonable lengths to protect people on your property if you are an attractions operator and most theme parks go way above that. You can't stop every single person from hurting themselves, though. And the same people fretting about how unsafe rides are are the same people complaining that "H&S has gone mad!" when told to stop climbing on a fence - a way, way, way more dangerous activity than riding a coaster.

In that article linked above, her father says...

“The rides are flirting with the boundaries of technology in the speed, the inertia and G-force involved."

??????????????

Nothing to do with it. And they must know that. She didn't fall from Hydro because of speed, inertia, g-force. She fell out because she wasn't sitting in the damn seat properly.


It will be interesting to see if we actually find out the details of the Smiler incident. Do they have to specify, or can they get away with vague-ness?

 

[SilverArrow]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/alton-towers-smiler-crash-family-9439980

:/ Wondered whether this was going to crop up.

Classic journalistic response to a rare incident - find the poor sods who last had it happen to them and wave a microphone in their face.

They have got a point in that if safety can realistically be improved then it should be, but as we know it doesn't mean thrill rides are inherently unsafe.

The thing about the Hydro accident is that it wouldn't have happened had staff checked the restraints.

Hayley was sitting on top of the lap bar - and we can call her an idiot for doing that all we like, but the reality is she was on a fun day out, probably excited and not completely paying attention. I have heard both enthusiasts AND rides engineers talk about how silly it is that staff have to check every bar, because on a lot of rides if one is down they all must be, or in other cases the computer notifies if they are not shut - but this is why. It's less about actually checking to make sure they are locked or tight enough and more about making sure people are in them correctly.


In that article her father says...

“The rides are flirting with the boundaries of technology in the speed, the inertia and G-force involved."

??????????????

Nothing to do with it. And they must know that. She didn't fall from Hydro because of speed, inertia, g-force. She fell out because she wasn't sitting in the damn seat properly.


It will be interesting to see if we actually find out the details of the Smiler incident. Do they have to specify, or can they get away with vague-ness?

I didn't know that detail. I wasn't following stuff as much though back then. Man, that's just crap-especially as the restraint would have registered as closed.

I hope we get some more info as the ambiguity of it at the moment leaves things wide open for all types of speculation.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Actually maybe I'm mixing that up with another incident, because now I go to read about it it just says it was open. Which is kinda worse, because that means the ride lets you send it with bars up. 3 fold triangle of blame there.

 

[SilverArrow]

Actually maybe I'm mixing that up with another incident, because now I go to read about it it just says it was open. Which is kinda worse, because that means the ride lets you send it with bars up. 3 fold triangle of blame there.

Ok. Either way it's dodgy!

 

[nealbie]

Speaking of other accidents, I'm surprised none of the media have brought up the Lightwater Valley accident. Where two cars on their spinning wild mouse crashed into eachother and a young woman died.

I've linked the concluding HSE report on it.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2006/e06114.htm

Interesting to note that even though it seemed to be a manufacturer fault (short circuit allowing two cars in the same block), the HSE decided to fine the operator heavily too because of the "high safety standards expected". Wonder if a similar verdict will be found for Alton Towers regardless of what the cause was.

 

[Screaming Coasters]

Ride ops are barely above burger flippers in the grand scheme of theme park operations.

Sure, they'll pick things up along the way, but the idea that they're in any way experts with regards to the ride tech is crap.

Those jobs are all seasonal, minimum wage and by their very nature designed as summer jobs, ie students who have no interest in the industry.

Feel free to get offended if you're a ride op, but them's the facts.

Actually, back in the Tussauds Group days, this couldn't be more far away from the truth. Back then, we were pretty much engineers. We had to understand the ride, the different parts of the rides and what each thing did to pass a test. We were able to strip rides at the time, do things engineers could and tell an engineer exactly what was wrong with the ride and what part needs checking during a breakdown. When I went back when Merlin took over, the training was completely different. It was dumbed right down and ride ops were simply oblivious ride ops with all the responsibility stripped away. Taking care of a breakdown back in the Tussauds days was super efficient. Nowadays, the engineers go to a ride blindly.

You're right and you're wrong. Sort of thingy..