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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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I think that one possibility a lot of people are forgetting is that they might not have seen the stalled car. The ride was having problems all day and if the problem was with the sensors not working properly or a problem with the block section then the engineer was all ready there and the track might not have been totally visible on cctv and could have easily been missed if you glanced over it expecting to see nothing wrong. It then could take 10 mins to override the system and send the car over the top of the hill. This would be very easy to do and would explain a lot. Of course this is just speculation
 
I'm sure the media will try to blame someone though. Merlin, towers or an individual. It won't be fair and I'm sure they will get that individual's friend's dentist's cousin's dog walker to say how they think that person should have got the job

Obviously though, this will rely on the name being disclosed, which is unlikely, but the tabloids in this case will probably make it all about generic AT staff
 
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It would be fair to hear from the staffs POV and I'm 100% convinced that if they knew about the stalled train they wouldn't of advanced the train that was on the lift, just to add the crash site is in the background of one of the CCTV cameras but it's so small that it would off been hard to spot.
 
Ash123uk said:
If someone is found to be "at fault" I'm sure Towers won't disclose anyone's names.

Also regardless of anything, no matter if someone wanted to send the train around the fact of the matter is, it shouldn't have been possible.
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It shouldn't be possible to fly a plane into a building but if you want to you can. No matter how many safety measures are in place there will always be the possibility of this happening again, even if a minute one.
 
Ash123uk said:
Also regardless of anything, no matter if someone wanted to send the train around the fact of the matter is, it shouldn't have been possible.
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That's not true. There is always a possibility of a disaster, no matter how rare trains colliding on a rollercoaster is.
 
Just up the road from us a plane crashed into a dual carriageway and killed a bunch of people just yesterday.

The plane could have come down in anyone of the miles of field surrounding that section of the A27 or into the sea but it bullseyed the road and caused quite horrific damage and loss of life.

These 2 things are comparable in a way because the odds against these 2 things happening are astronomical

Nothing is ever 100% safe, no matter how much you want it to be and the media are actually boring me now, these disasters are their bread and butter.

Yes i have been saying since day 1 that these exact events are more than likely what caused the crash, but now honestly i just don't care i am glad nobody died and just want people to understand that these things happen, get over it, i wanna go ride the Smiler and everytime one of these stories comes out is likely delaying when i can do that.

On a final note, the other forum BANNED ME merely for suggesting that human error was the cause of the crash.
 
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I don't actually have too many problems with that Daily Mail article (apart from their questioning of why it is even possible to put rides into manual). It seems an accurate account of what happened. I have more of a problem with the cretin who works at/has worked at Towers and decided to sell the details of the incident to the Mail.

As I said it seems an accurate account of what happened and is what I have thought from the off. It has been evident that the safety sytems on The Smiler stopped the carraige at the top of lift 1 as it should do. For it to get going again there had to be a manual overide.
Machin said:
Exactly, they most probably did know. Given that the block had kicked in and stopped the ride for 10 minutes, in that time they must have known it had stalled. My money's still on "tried to reverse the train back down the lift for evac, but didn't quite put it in reverse"
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I disagree - the biggest error in this whole event is that not one person who mattered knew that a train had stalled. I believe that one of the first things the operator/engineer is meant to do in the case of a breakdown is account for all trains on the circuit. For some unknown reason they either forgot it was running on 5 trains, counted a train twice or simply didn't account for them at all. But then there was a clear lack of communication from other people in the area to the op-cabin. The train was stalled for 10 minutes at least, one of the staff members either on the entrance or in the shop must have either noticed this or been informed by a guest. I've said to many people that surely one of the first things you would do in this situation is communicate it to the op-cabin to ensure they knew of the stall.

I'm certain that they did not try to reverse the train back down the lift. If they'd known it had stalled then the procedure should immediately be a standard lift evac. Also they make annoucements when they plan to reverse the train so that the guests on board are not wondering what or earth is going on. If these had happened we'd have heard about them by now.

It is of course all down to human error. However that does not mean that the blame lies entirely with the humans involved. The train they were given and the procedures in place for such a situation will come under just as much scrutiny. The sad thing about it all is how easily avoidable this incident was.

:)
 
I wonder if this was one of those times when one person *might have* known, but someone else told them to do something so they did. If you watch Aircrash Investigation, there have been a few times in the past when the co-pilot could have spoken up and saved the plane, but was scared to because he felt the captain outranked him and knew what he was doing.

I doubt this was the case though. As far as I know the op is the highest "rank" when they are running a ride. And they really should have been aware of where each train was.
 
bluesonichd said:
but if tech services are there fixing it, wont they outrank the ride ops?
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I'm not sure (there are others who probably know more than me), but I was under the impression that the op was where the buck stopped, at least when guests are on the ride. It is possible that if an evac is in progress, this may then pass to someone else.

... This is starting to get back to "who's to blame?", which is exactly what I wanted to avoid. D'oh! My bad.
 
Does anyone else feel this has been done to death and back? Until the report comes out we will never truly know what happened that day to cause the outcome.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
I wonder if this was one of those times when one person *might have* known, but someone else told them to do something so they did. If you watch Aircrash Investigation, there have been a few times in the past when the co-pilot could have spoken up and saved the plane, but was scared to because he felt the captain outranked him and knew what he was doing..
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A similar thing happened with the plane crash when the wrong engine got turned off, some passengers saw that they had turned the wrong one off but didn't say anything because they thought the pilots must know what they are doing.
 
spinba11 said:
A similar thing happened with the plane crash when the wrong engine got turned off, some passengers saw that they had turned the wrong one off but didn't say anything because they thought the pilots must know what they are doing.
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And from what i understand, while the Kegworth air disaster was proportioned to Human error, however one of the pilots that lost their job received a pay out for unfair dismissal.

If Alton Towers/Merlin/HSE go down the human error route they need to be exceedingly careful and avoid a witch hunt/heads on a pole/ a few rotten eggs approach., using terms such as unique set of circumstances combined with procedural errors maybe a better away to describe things as opposed to human error.

As for how it was dealt with, what happens at Alton towers when something like the smiler crash occurs? is the station area locked down with ride ops staying in place? what about the guests/customers in the immediate area/in the station?
 
@chilli2 Human error could actually be a big win for the park, if they conclude that staff ignored the process/procedure outlined by the park, that reflects better on the park than if they didn't have the correct process/procedure to begin with.

You can have the most rugged safety procedures in the world, but if a rogue individual takes it upon themselves to do what they want, they procedure is worthless - until you need to prove that what the individual did was wrong.
 
I could be the best outcome for the park, or it could be the worst. If its human error because the op/engineer was entirely at fault, say for example they didn't look for a stalled car and sent it anyway, then towers is at a win. However, there is more of a chance that human error could be a bad thing. If the op/engineer claim they didn't receive proper training or something like that, then merlin will have to reevaluate all their staff training, change incident procedures (if it stalled and they didn't know what to do, for example) and merlin would be at blame, something which the media would love
 
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