An accident averted

[Ian]

I had an email today regarding an accident not on our current list. (The accident page will be updated on the new site yadda yadda.)

You may already be aware of this accident footage but I wasn't so I'm posting it anyway.

In this video, Python at Eftelin has broken down at the top of the lift hill. One member of staff tries to evacuate the riders whilst another one attempts to push the train. At 0:07 you can see the restraints are open. At 0:12, the train starts to move...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnPlwDle8KI[/youtube]

After it clears the first loop, you can stop watching because it's pretty dull, but all I can say is thank **** for instinct!

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Now that is a big massive cock-up from the staff there...

Should've unloaded from the front... Why they didn't is beyond me...

 

[Hixee]

I have seen this video before, but it still amazes me every time. I agree that they shouldn't have been unloading from the rear, but really it's just great that no-one was hurt. It could've gone much worse!

 

[alexr]

It could have been worse,if it did go with people on it I wonder if anyone would survive if they tried to apply enough pressure to the restraints.

 

[Ian]

Should've unloaded from the front... Why they didn't is beyond me...

There's... probably... a... good... reason... for... it..., but... why... should... they... unload... from... the... front...? ...

 

[Hixee]

Should've unloaded from the front... Why they didn't is beyond me...

There's... probably... a... good... reason... for... it..., but... why... should... they... unload... from... the... front...? ...

Because the front of the train was already over the crest of the hill. So as they unload the train (and the weight distribution shifts) from the back it puts more weight over the front of the train, thus causing it to move. If the emptied the front of the train first, the weight would shift back down the lift hill, which isn't a problem.

 

[Ian]

^ Ah right, cheers Hix. I thought it was standard practise or something seeing as Benin was a ride op, not some physics crap.

There's a point, when a few CFers got stuck on Colossus a few years ago, did they evacuate from the front or back?

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

^It's probably a mixture of physics and procedure...

If it wasn't cresting the lift, it wouldn't matter which order they evacuated in because it would neither move forwards or backwards...

But Hixee already answered the question, so this post is just a supplementary...

 

[Martyn B]

I could have sworn when I first saw of this, it was said that there was some bad communication issues as the lift motor was started up whilst they were evactuating?

But either, that could have been so bad!

 

[rollermonkey]

This is kind of old, like over a year ago.

At 6FGAm, our procedures were to always unload from the end of the train closest to the station so that guests on the train would not see other guests being evacuated walk past. This was meant to limit the possibility of a guest panicking.

Obviously, in this case, that was a bad move.
lol

 

[Dave]

It is quite foolish, since the dogs in the car for anti-rollback on stop it going backwards....someone probably got sacked.

 

[bezzzzzer]

Oh my God that's mental.

Again, miracle nobody got hurt, etc. I was so shocked when the train pulled away! Riddiculous.

 

[furie]

Yeah, when we were evacuated from Colossus they did back first. Again, it may seem clever, but the people at the front were higher and considerably more exposed than those at the back. SO they suffered a lot more than the people at the back would have done.

I assume that this was evacuated that way simply because it's standard practice, and when you have a manual to follow and procedures (nicely written to conform to H&S) you no longer need to follow common sense. Hurrah for procedures!

 

[KDGrizzly4Life]

CF tells us to go front first, unless something crazy is going on. If the train, or log in my case, is even slightly in danger of falling over the lift, then we have to secure it before we evacuate. That's for the reasons stated above, physics and weight distribution and whatnot. I will say though, that mistakes happen, it is very lucky that those people did not get hurt but you have to keep in mind that it is human being running those rides. I'm not excusing the actions of those ride ops at all, but it's very stressful to have to deal with a dangerous situation like that. I've seen a ride evac for I305, and I guarentee you require balls of steel to climb all those steps and rescue those people. You can have hours of training, but draw blanks at the absolute wrong moment or become careless. Until robots run these things, the fatal flaw of human emotion will be present and events like these will happen.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I've seen this before.

I recon one of the reasons back first is the general rule is because disabled guests are usually at the back?

Really, someone should first speak to everyone on board and assess who is most stressed, and get them out first, regardless of their seat.

It would not surprise me if someone had spoken up and said to emptied back first and been rejected because it's not procedure.

 

[KDGrizzly4Life]

Well procedure is there for a reason. The risk of emptying the back first, regardless of the rear guests' conditions, is far greater then going by the books. And not to mention the "Oh it was the ride ops' fault for not going by the books, so park is liable" BS.

 

[Lofty]

To be totally honest, I thought the lift motor starts again rather then the sudden weight distribution change?

Also, kinda off-topic, when I was evacuated from PMBO, they started from the front too, due to me being on the front row, I wasn't happy, I would have rather waited lol..

 

[Screaming Coasters]

Yeah, this is a very old video.

But that aside, the idiots are not allowed to evacuate from the point the train starts to crest the hill. It can only be preformed if the train is below that point, not on it.

1. They should have tied the rear of the train at least.
2. Wait for engineers to fix it and get the train into the next safe block.

 

[Error]

Yeah, this is a very old video.

But that aside, the idiots are not allowed to evacuate from the point the train starts to crest the hill. It can only be preformed if the train is below that point, not on it.

1. They should have tied the rear of the train at least.
2. Wait for engineers to fix it and get the train into the next safe block.

Pretty much.

For both Cedar Point and Six Flags, if you go to a stuck or blocked train, you don't touch the train. No ride host is allowed to release riders, except when absolutely needed.

I've seen 2 evacs, one on Raptor, one on Demon Drop. Both times they had a mechanic.

 

[Xpress]

I know this video is a few years old... I remember a long drawn out topic about it on coastersims...

I think the conclusions we came up with were that they should have first tied the train off and then proceeded to unload from the front of the train to the rear..

As for climbing tall lift hills, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I can imagine some people are the same, and for even more climbing tall lift hills is so routine they don't even think about doing it.