TPJames Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 This event is one of the most devastating ride accidents to happen in the UK in a long time, my best wishes go out to everyone involved and associated with the accidents. It's no doubt that as a community we will all be extremely shocked by what has happened and I am sure everyone of you, like me, are hoping for the injured to make a full and swift recovery. Unfortunately all we can do in this situation is hope for the best of the injured and hope they manage to recover properly; whilst we cannot take any actions ourselves on what has happened, let's make the power of hope as a community give the best possible result to all of those involved in the accident. My condolences to absolutely everyone involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmangi Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Some thoughts I had overnight. 1. Next time I'm standing in line moaning about the slow dispatch of trains, I will think of the pressure staff are under. (Not saying it was operator error, we don't know yet). 2. The parks are under such pressure for all rides to be open and operating at full capacity. Safety has to come first even if it means all of us waiting longer. 3. As you can tell this won't change my desire to go to parks, but will change my attitude to queuing and waiting for rides, I hope some people here will see this as well and posts moaning about rides not running all trains and at full capacity are less frequent. 4. There is no proof that any of the above was a cause, but it still should be worth thinking about. 5. An accident is just that. No matter how many fail safes there are, an unexpected set of events can happen and that is exactly what an accident is. Obviously my thoughts go out to everyone involved, people on the ride, the families, the people who saw it and were there, the staff and also the emergency services who had to deal with an awful situation, in the most difficult of circumstances. But I would like to look to the future and wonder if this will affect the development plans of the group. If, as expected, this costs the group millions (I know the priority is the people I listed above) then surely investment over the next few years will be significantly reduced, also will they want to spend a large amount on rides when public confidence is down? I know we are sane, but we are enthusiasts, the general public reading the exaggerated reports on Twitter will no doubt be influenced. There are going to be significant questions for the park over the next few days, but as obviously stated the current priority is those involved in the incident and anyone affected by it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Stolen off someone on TST as I don't want to give the Dail Mail hits (and nor should YOU! YES, YOU!) Would not be surprised if someone has to lose a leg though, crush injuries are the absolute worst... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Users Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 White Bear Tom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Id love to see a video of the bit where it stops on inversion 5 before being released. It's almost like they make this stuff up. Mer, TPJames, Ian-S and 4 others 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchada04 Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Truly upsetting what's happened. Same can only be said again that full support on the recovery of those involved and injured. Full support to all the staff on park as well and anyone who works on the ride (of which I know a few). Can't be easy to see something you work on every day go horribly wrong and then to get loads of guests screaming at you to do something when you maybe can't (problem with customer facing jobs). Towers are going the right way about this all keeping it very professional and putting peoples safety first is paramount. Varney is a genuinely nice guy as much as enthusiasts moan about him, to him its like his kid has gone horribly wrong and attacked his friends. Can't be easy to witness or hear, especially with media today I doubt no one believed it for the first 5 minutes. If this was a staff issue I'd be surprised and feel awful for the person at fault, imagine having that on your shoulders. Ride systems are clever, they know where every car is at all times so something should have popped up saying the valleyed car in the Batwing isn't registering on the circuit. Unless it glitched and somehow registered it at the bottom of the vertical lift. Either way, that pit will be heavily covered in cameras as it's prone to stalling, like Electric Bill said there is no blind spot on a ride. If one of Swarm's CCTV cameras isn't working it can't operate, wouldn't be surprised if Smiler is the same. Plus, there's a staff member at the entrance always who will have seen the valleyed car who presumably would have made it clear. Hopefully the investigation finds it to be a system failure on Gersts behalf as that's preferable to it being a staff members fault. Either way, hope everyone involved is recovering well and staff aren't too affected by what happened. Oh the Mail, they were doing so well with the terminology of the inversion and then made it a block section. The media makes everything worse. MattyMoo and Mer 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Towers have tweeted that they can not say for sure if the park will open tomorrow. I find the decision to shut the whole park a strange one. It may well be the right thing to do, but part of me feels it will be viewed by the public as an indication of a wider problem affecting the whole park's safety that needs rectifying before reopening, rather than an isolated issue with one specific ride which has caused this incident. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted June 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 ^ The reason I asked about a cctv blind spot was because on one of the video's you see a staff member come out the grey building, stop, look and then go running back in, but I'll freely admit I have no idea whether that's an entrance, servicing or whatever. When we were at Cheesy they shut down Dragon Falls because the CCTV went down, so I know they're strict on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashleyrose-66 Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Not so sure. I think the public may be slight less sympathetic (not that AT needs sympathy) if it seemed they were adopting a "business as usual" approach. If the park being closed means a thorough and precise investigation can begin without the eyes of the public and media staring at them, then it makes sense to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmangi Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Towers have tweeted that they can not say for sure if the park will open tomorrow. I find the decision to shut the whole park a strange one. It may well be the right thing to do, but part of me feels it will be viewed by the public as an indication of a wider problem affecting the whole park's safety that needs rectifying before reopening, rather than an isolated issue with one specific ride which has caused this incident. I think they would be damned if they opened and damned if they don't. As you said, shutting the entire park down is a big decision which wouldn't have been taken lightly. But this is a major incident (and thats a understatement). If they had opened, the staff would have been asked millions of questions, every journalist under the sun would have gone in, lots of people would be trying to get to and take photos of the ride. Also they would have had to shut the entire X sector to keep cameras and reporters away, which would rule out Oblivion as well, would people be happy having paid a lot of money for an entire sector to be closed and most likely be harrassed by journalists all day. Also for the staff, they will need to be briefed on the situation, and yes it may be an isolated issue, but I would have every maintenance person I could find going over ALL rides in detail, just to be 100% sure. Imagine if there was any tiny incident today, how blown out of proportion it would get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFarmerDean Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 People who would go would complain and want refunds for an area of the park not being open, and then want refunds anyway on top of the running cost of the park and the whole trying to have privacy in the affected area... So it's quite a wise decision to keep it closed maybe for the next day or two, as they'll be giving refunds anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchada04 Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Thing is, Towers closed X Sector multiple times when Smiler stalled there and during construction so they're willing to do that (which will presumably happen for a few days any way if the park does open tomorrow). You can check all the rides in as much detail as you want, if this was purely a computer glitch then it might not have been able to foresee, it could well have just happened out of nowhere. It's like getting your car serviced, it can feel fine for a week then the next minute the head gasket goes or something. Staff get used to being asked loads of questions, on our BTS of Smiler our staff member told us about the wheel incident when it was just a rubber sealant thing, not a wheel. Just something that runs along the chain so they already were pestered with questions. Remember when Rita's cable snapped? That's a major thing to happen, just look at Xcelerator. But it happened luckily out of park hours. If that happened with people on and in the area it would get just as much press as this. But Joe Bloggs doesn't know about it, because no one could tweet it and get the prying eyes of the press in. Basically, you can check a ride as much as you want and give it the best maintenance but if it's going to break, it'll break. Ian-S 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Towers have tweeted that they can not say for sure if the park will open tomorrow. I find the decision to shut the whole park a strange one. It may well be the right thing to do, but part of me feels it will be viewed by the public as an indication of a wider problem affecting the whole park's safety that needs rectifying before reopening, rather than an isolated issue with one specific ride which has caused this incident. Wouldn't surprise me if HSE wanted all the rides to be checked... Plus, stops people from gathering around X-Sector all day trying to see something happening... As people say, damned if they closed, damned if they open, the papers would have a field day if they were open to be fair to them... The right decision was to close irregardless... Allows them to get the stories straight and brief the staff appropriately as a result... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 While these points are true, they will still be pretty much just as much of an issue when the park does reopen. It's just delaying those things. X sector will be off limits for a while, I'm quite sure. I'm not criticising them for closing, but wonder if it really is the best thing to have done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Closing completely is better than having news crews/enthusiasts/guests with their phones/cameras pressed up against X-Sector's entrance... "Business as usual" would be awkward to enforce, especially as the staff themselves will feel stressed out by it all... Best to set up the plan of action without anyone coming in and kicking off about the incident... Merry-go-girl 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Users Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 If it was open today, the news crews would be just swarming around the X Sector entrance in the hope of trying to find a way in. My guess is that X Sector is going to be fenced off from quite a distance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Nick Varney quoted on the BBC this morning... "Those two cars should not have been on the same piece of track. Technically that should not have happened. "There are braking locks that should stop two cars being on the same section of track and somehow that didn't work the way it was meant to." Earlier he said: "I would like to express my sincerest regret and apology to everyone who suffered injury and distress and to their families. "The safety of our visitors is our primary concern. The park will remain closed until we understand better the cause of this dreadful incident." He praised "outstanding" emergency services for their "swift and effective response" to the crash, which happened at about 14:00 when two carriages collided on a low section of track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted June 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 While these points are true, they will still be pretty much just as much of an issue when the park does reopen. It's just delaying those things. X sector will be off limits for a while, I'm quite sure. I'm not criticising them for closing, but wonder if it really is the best thing to have done. Maybe they want some time to build a WC16 style fence/wall around it to keep prying eyes out (is that even possible given it's location?) so that the rest of the area can operate as normal once the park re-opens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 It seems that other Merlin attractions (specifically Thorpe) are accepting tickets that could have been used today, and also any other days that Alton remain closed because of the incident. Full credit to Towers' (and Merlin in general) social media. They've been handling the situation really well, which is important at times like this. pognoi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HermanTheGerman Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 The Guardian are blaming Human Error as a "major" contributor the accident, saying that the staff shouldn't have dispatched the loaded train with the other not having completed the first section. Stupid really, I doubt it would have stalled before they dispatched. I just feel bad for the staff now really, they're probably feeling bad enough about what happened, the last thing they need is for a national newspaper to jump to conclusions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 If it's correct that Train 2 (the full one) was on the lift hill for 10 minutes whilst train 2 (the empty stalled one) was stalled, then why didn't they evacuate queue etc straight away? I may be wrong, but don't they have to evacuate the area, get a crane in and take the empty stalled car off the track that way? But people were still joining the queue after the car had stalled. This makes me think maybe that they hadn't realised the car was stalled after that inversion? Ian-S, pluk, Cal and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 The Guardian are blaming Human Error as a "major" contributor the accident, saying that the staff shouldn't have dispatched the loaded train with the other not having completed the first section. Stupid really, I doubt it would have stalled before they dispatched. I just feel bad for the staff now really, they're probably feeling bad enough about what happened, the last thing they need is for a national newspaper to jump to conclusions. We don't know how many empty cars were sent out before they started loading again, all we have are eye witness accounts and some of these are very unreliable. OldFarmerDean 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashleyrose-66 Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Alton Towers will be closed tomorrow (Thursday) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted June 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Can see it reopening Saturday or Monday, depending what the HSE say. Interestingly worded statement from the HSE too: Neil Craig, head of operations for HSE in the Midlands, said: “This was a major incident and members of the public have suffered serious injuries. It meets the criteria for an HSE investigation and our inspectors were at Alton Towers yesterday to begin making inquiries. “We have assembled a team of specialist inspectors and technical investigators and they will be on site today to continue our investigation. “Our role is to establish the facts. We will want to determine that those responsible for operating this ride have done what the law requires. We will also ensure that if there are any lessons to be learned they are shared as soon as possible. “Although the investigation is in its early stages, we will take action to protect the public if we uncover evidence that could affect the safety of other rides at the park or elsewhere.” Notes to editors: A number of HSE inspectors have been specially trained to form its National Fairground Inspection Team (NFIT). The team investigating this incident at Alton Towers is being supported on site by specialists in mechanical engineering, electrics and control systems from HSE’s Health and Safety Laboratory in Buxton, Derbyshire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted June 3, 2015 Report Share Posted June 3, 2015 Daily fail still going with the story of someone lost their leg. They've also identified a couple that were on the ride. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3108873/Alton-Towers-staff-did-not-crushed-rollercoaster-car-10-minutes.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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