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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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I dont know why I should have been shocked, but the amount of people in resort boxoffice at the end of the day, complaining and wanting some sort of compensation, due to the fact they hadent been able to get into to xsector.
90% of general public... :confused:
Yes we know your day had been "ruined" but by the fact that 4 air ambulance were still there at 5pm should have indicated other peoples day had been worse than yours. Stop harassing the AT staff and go home.
 
To be fair, the Majority of guests probably wouldn't have known what had happened. At the very least it would have been muted as a small incident.

People are bound to act selfishly, it's the way we are programmed, more so in the younger generation for obvious reasons.
 
Most people have said how I feel regarding this incident, shocked, saddened, concerned and worried. I joked that this coaster was an accident waiting to happen but never did I genuinely believe it would. I feel incredibly sorry for the passengers on the ride and wish them a full recovery, and the staff and guests who have witnessed it.

I don't want to speculate on who is at fault, but it very much seems like Dr. James Reason's model called 'Windows of Opportunity' occurred. Imagine 4 windows which each represent a system or procedure in place. The windows open and close regularly but as long as at least one is closed, a systemic failure will not occur, but if all the windows are open for just a fraction of a second, that's the window of opportunity and that's when the systemic failure occurs. We used this model in a film at work which was about the Clapham Junction crash in 1988.

I'm avoiding all the tabloids and idiotic comments on Facebook etc, though I did see that the Mirror (through Twitter) had already conducted a poll asking 'Should The Smiler be closed down', no knee jerk reactions from anywhere though. ;)

On the subject of what qualifies as 'life changing'. A broken leg may not be life changing, but it could be depending on your occupation/lifestyle. I don't think you can easily categorise the severity of an injury as there are other factors to take into account.
 
Discovered the news yesterday evening when I got up for work so I have just got around to giving my two cents. I do apologise for the length of this post and the possible grammatical errors as I'm shattered. I did however want to cover all bases.

First my thoughts go out to all those who were involved in yesterdays incident and those with serious injuries make a full recovery. My thought's also go out to the ride staff and those who witnessed the crash. I can't imagine the shock and distress for all those involved and the lasting effect it could end up having on their mental health.

I still can't quite believe such a serious incident occurred on a ride that has only just past it's 2 year birthday. We all know The Smiler has been quite problematic since it opened but none of us could have predicted that something like this would happen, especially something that should be completely impossible. I'm not going to speculate about what caused this until we know the facts from the official report if it become public, although I do have my theories.

Look's like the staff did a excellent job with handling it all and putting their training into action quickly and calmly which they should be highly commended for. No one expects to have to ever deal with the worst possible situations and put training into effect. Four hours would seam like a long time for all though's involved be they staff or those unfortunate to be on the train but when you think about the seriousness of the incident and everything they had to consider to insure those with critical injuries weren't put at furtherer risk before evacuation could begin, four hours is a relatively short time to complete an evacuation when you put all the factors in place.

Staff in higher positions have also reacted well and done everything right in my book, rather than hide behind closed doors and let PR representatives give statements they have faced the media and have given statements personally. Whatever you think of Nick Varney, you have to give him credit for arriving on site so swiftly. He did impeccably in that interview on Sky News, even when faced with a few unfair questions ( the question about fall in stock prices for Merlin was an obvious ploy to make him slip up and make himself look bad.) You can see he was genuinely upset and still in a state of shock over the fact that something like this happened in one of his companies parks. We as enthusiasts do seam to see him as a faceless figure who doesn't care but we forget he is still only a human being who makes mistakes and has feeling like the rest of us. Their shall be a lot on his and management's shoulders in the next coming months.

The closure of the park today was a good decision by Varney. Gives the staff some time to come to terms with what has happened and time to relax after what I can imagine was a very stressful day. Without the park opening, management have got a chance to concentrate on assisting H&S with the start of the investigation and discussing action plans regarding possible plans for the future of the coaster and the public image of the park, without the days responsibilities getting in the way.

Unfortunately some media outlets more than others are more interested in sensationalism rather than reporting facts. As we know the red tops are the worst offenders. Their format is dying with the existence of the internet so they are focusing on sensationalising the news with no consideration to who it's going to effect in the long run, as long as they sell papers to those people gullible to believe everything they read, they don't care.

I've read comments from people on social media and some of them have irritated me so I ended up stopping. There are a lot of silly comments from people but a lot of it is just ignorance. We have to remember unless you're in our community and have a good idea of how coasters work you won't know they have certain safety devices, so they blame people.

I'm sure the park and the ride will recover and bounce back from this in the long run, now that an incident has occurred and once the full investigation has been complete I would think most people will be more assured than ever before that the ride is safe and what caused this unfortunate incident can never happen again. If you look at the Mindbender crash in 1986, which was the worst accident in the modern amusement park industry, the coaster is still running and over the past 29 years since the incident, it is all but a distant memory. In the short run I can't see the ride opening again until next season though.


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Pure speculation, but if it was known that the test car had valleyed, which you'd assume it was, and the second car stopped on the lift by the block system, the only way guests would have been removed from the car is by evacuating from the lift. The ride should have been e-stopped, or at least lift-stopped, but it could have been in manual mode to operate the evac lift. Could it be that they intended to lower the car back down to level to evac, but instead the lift continued? Or could it be the ride reset the block system and restarted the lift before anybody could stop it?
 
Who knows..... but I have two main concerns

(1) reports of people in the queue line saying that the car full of people made its way up the lift hill and stopped for 5-10 mins at the top
(2) people telling staff at the ride entrance about the stalled train

raises the concerns, why didnt the staff phone through to the station to alert them to the stalled train and, did someone manually override the safety systems to dispatch that train, and if so, it must have been an engineer as the ride op wouldnt have the authority to do this.

Pure speculation of course and will be interesting to hear what the investigation finds....
 
I think the press are getting mixed up with an incident that happened at Flamingo land a couple of days ago where a ride got stuck upside down with people on it for 25 mins.

Dont read the papers they know nothing
 
We don't know that they didn't. Its ok saying someone told them about the car it may have already been noted, doesn't the control box have camera's on parts of the ride????? I wouldn't really trust "eye witness" accounts they are always exaggerated. Its lucky that the empty car had moved when hit as this would have taken a lot of the energy out. The injuries could have been worse had the trains brakes were on.
 
EuroSatch said:
Pure speculation, but if it was known that the test car had valleyed, which you'd assume it was, and the second car stopped on the lift by the block system, the only way guests would have been removed from the car is by evacuating from the lift. The ride should have been e-stopped, or at least lift-stopped, but it could have been in manual mode to operate the evac lift. Could it be that they intended to lower the car back down to level to evac, but instead the lift continued? Or could it be the ride reset the block system and restarted the lift before anybody could stop it?
Click to expand...

Of course it is all speculation at this time but something along these lines sounds plausible:
  • Train 1 is sent empty as a final 'test' train, however a gust of wind caused it to stall in the batwing
  • Train 2, full of guests, has already been dispatched from the station, however the block systems works and stops train 2 at the top of lift 1 due to the fact the train 1 has not reached the mid-course brakes
  • Train 2 is stopped at the top of the lift for 5-10 minutes
  • For some unknown reason train 2 is then sent over the lift despite train 1 resting in the batwing
Now the question is why on earth was the train sent over the lift? That is where the investigation will start and focus. Did they try to reverse it back down the lift but sent it the wrong way by mistake? Did staff in the station not realise a train had stalled so manually restarted the ride and sent it over? Why did the ride system allow this to happen at all, had it 'forgotten' that a train was still in that block? Lots of questions that needs answering.

Just for clarity - I am in no way suggesting that any individual is to blame. However the nature of speculation, which is bound to happen on here now, means what people did will be brought into question. I'm sure all the staff who worked on The Smiler yesterday are horrified and I hope Towers work with them and help them if needed.

:)
 
Slugjc said:
We don't know that they didn't. Its ok saying someone told them about the car it may have already been noted, doesn't the control box have camera's on parts of the ride????? I wouldn't really trust "eye witness" accounts they are always exaggerated. Its lucky that the empty car had moved when hit as this would have taken a lot of the energy out. The injuries could have been worse had the trains brakes were on.
Click to expand...

Its already been said by another TST member, the only CCTV is on the brakes and lift hills etc ie places where cars should stop.

Also the trains don't have any brakes! All the brakes are on the track.
 
jon81uk said:
Its already been said by another TST member, the only CCTV is on the brakes and lift hills etc ie places where cars should stop.

Also the trains don't have any brakes! All the brakes are on the track.
Click to expand...



That's what i was getting at.
 
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Rob said:
Of course it is all speculation at this time but something along these lines sounds plausible:
  • Train 1 is sent empty as a final 'test' train, however a gust of wind caused it to stall in the batwing
  • Train 2, full of guests, has already been dispatched from the station, however the block systems works and stops train 2 at the top of lift 1 due to the fact the train 1 has not reached the mid-course brakes
  • Train 2 is stopped at the top of the lift for 5-10 minutes
  • For some unknown reason train 2 is then sent over the lift despite train 1 resting in the batwing
Now the question is why on earth was the train sent over the lift? That is where the investigation will start and focus. Did they try to reverse it back down the lift but sent it the wrong way by mistake? Did staff in the station not realise a train had stalled so manually restarted the ride and sent it over? Why did the ride system allow this to happen at all, had it 'forgotten' that a train was still in that block? Lots of questions that needs answering.

Just for clarity - I am in no way suggesting that any individual is to blame. However the nature of speculation, which is bound to happen on here now, means what people did will be brought into question. I'm sure all the staff who worked on The Smiler yesterday are horrified and I hope Towers work with them and help them if needed.

:)
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Indeed. Whatever the scenario, I do feel for however was there at the time as its doubt fell nobody intended that 2nd car to have continues up the lift hill, and it must have been terrifying to know it had and they were incapable of stopping the collision from that point. I wouldn't want to place any blame on anybody but there must have been some element of manual mode in play, for the system to have forgotten about the car not returning to the station, or there is a serious fault with the programming.

Serious modifications are going to be needed now, including some serious alterations to the 'knot' element to prevent future valleying. And I doubt it will open for at least this coming season, maybe even into next.
 
The BBC have reported that one of the four seriously injured guests has been discharged from hospital, which is good news.

EDIT: The BBC have now changed their article and it is not clear whether they mean one of the seriously injured or the other man with neck and abdominal injuries who has been discharged from hospital.

:)
 
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The BBC article suggests Varney has said the park may not reopen tomorrow either, but until it is established whether the incident is isolated to The Smiler or could be replicated on other rides. Interestig
 
Could be a number of things - rides operating with the same programming software, overlooking procedures that allow this to occur, unintended negligence in maintenance etc. pretty standard stuff to check in this kind of event, but it could keep the park closed until all checks/procedures/ride manuals are gone through with a fine toothed comb
 
I think it's probably more to do with making sure staff all know the rides operation and safety procedures to the correct standards so that nothing like this could happen on any other ride.
 
EuroSatch said:
Could be a number of things - rides operating with the same programming software, overlooking procedures that allow this to occur, unintended negligence in maintenance etc. pretty standard stuff to check in this kind of event, but it could keep the park closed until all checks/procedures/ride manuals are gone through with a fine toothed comb
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Yes but its a Gerst, the only one on the park. I bet the other software on the b and m's is different.
 
EuroSatch said:
The BBC article suggests Varney has said the park may not reopen tomorrow either, but until it is established whether the incident is isolated to The Smiler or could be replicated on other rides. Interestig
Click to expand...

Apparently SAW is closed at Thorpe today.... related? Just tweeted Oakwood to ask about Speed.
 
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