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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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Terribly sad occurrence today. I thought that Nick Varney was very considerate in that TV interview and came across well, he was clearly upset.
 
Special merit must also got to the Towers Social media staff, particuarly Twitter where in cases they may personally or just copy paste replies to as many concerned and politely inquisitive guests as possible. A bit shaken by this event, respect to all those in distress. I just fear what this could impact on Towers future endevours e.g SW8 shelved, reduced opening hours/The Blade actually cut for more cutbacks from the potential reduced customer base. Never been one for The Smiler so I'll still visit in August and October, I'm a small guy so having my head banged for a few minutes isn't really my thing, that was what made me more dizzy than the ride.

Varney, Crabbe and Social media have helped to try and preserve the family-attentive brand and generate genuine sympathetic PR which is the best they could do in such a situation. Props to them.
 
Leg amputation is extremely unlikely. People were quoting 'news outlets' as claiming a fatality earlier. The injuries are still life changing though.

Barring a deliberate act, a technical system failure is the reason. If the system did everything it should but human error was sill allowed to cause this then the system is inadequate and still ultimately failed.
 
Jesus...people get paid to write this stuff? "Seven Incidents - copied straight from Wikipedia, and edited to replace every other word with 'dangling'"

The amount of misinformation is staggering. They've even got the ride's opening date wrong!

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That's shockingly bad journalism. Given that it looks like it's from the Mail, though, I'm hardly surprised.
 
Tom said:
Leg amputation is extremely unlikely. People were quoting 'news outlets' as claiming a fatality earlier. The injuries are still life changing though.
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Unfortunately, it depends entirely on the nature of the crush injury. The impact can break a bone, the bone can sever an artery, loss of circulation as a result to the affected limb may result in that, for example. :(

But I do agree, even without (hopefully) that outcome, such injuries may take a long time to recover from and can have a major impact on life for a long period of time or permanently depending on muscular/nerve damage also. I would like to think of the term in that wider way, but generally in the media the term 'life changing' is used in the most serious, worst case sense. The scrolling ticker on BBC News is now describing it as 'four people suffered serious leg injuries'.
 
I'm really shocked by this. I know The Smiler has had many problems, but I never expected an incident of this magnitude. I really hope that those involved are ok, I'm thinking of the staff, they must be feeling awful right now. Can't imagine how it must have felt to be on that train heading for the valleyed train, knowing you were going to hit it. I saw most of Nick Varney's interview and thought he came across really well.

Social media is driving me crazy! People really haven't a clue what they are talking about, and I'm sick of people telling me I can't go on The Smiler again. Trying to tell them that I'd be more likely to die on my way there, than riding the coaster...but people are stupid.

Whoever was there from TS today, thanks for the coverage. It's nice to have a sensible, reliable source of information.
 
Ah, the Daily Hate.

  • "One is thought to have lost a leg, a staff source said." Sounds like a trustworthy source.
  • "Two were pictured hanging 25ft upside down." Really? Also, what is it about tabloids and riders 'dangling' while not upside down?
  • Whoever's put together that diagram explaining what happened has clearly just gone off the eyewitnesses calling the first lift hill a loop, then put two and two together and made five.

Like probably a fair few people on here I must admit I've never quite had 100% confidence in The Smiler like I have with the park's B&Ms, given that we followed the construction and saw all those issues. Nowhere near enough to prevent me from riding of course, not by a long way, but there was always that slight concern. For that reason I must admit I wasn't entirely surprised when I heard about this, but it still came as a huge shock; I'd never expected anything serious to actually happen.

It goes without saying that this is a terrible incident, and my thoughts are with the riders, witnesses and park staff. I've imagined going through the first half of the ride and seeing a static train ahead at the batwing tonight, and it must have been truly horrendous for those on board. It's also baffling to think that the block system on a coaster opened in 2013 didn't prevent the second train from entering an occupied block for some reason. Hopefully the park, HSE and Gerstlauer will establish the cause before too long, the riders will recover, and the coaster will eventually reopen operating safely and better than ever. It'll be interesting in a way to see what they do to it in the meantime.
 
The tabloid reporting is terrible and proves these newspapers really aren't at all interested in reporting news, be it Alton Towers related or anything else for that matter.

It's a shame these articles are likely to have an influence on people's decisions to visit the park.

It's nice to see the towers having humility/compassion and handling the situation incredibly well. I think closing the park tomorrow was an extremely good decision to make which shows Merlin are taking the situation extremely seriously and in a bizarre way allowing some time for people to grieve. It would have been disrespectful to open the park tomorrow.
 
Let me first say that I know nothing about coaster control systems, PLC or anything, but I've seen some rumours that the ride can be put in "manual mode" which deactivates (or bypasses) the block safety systems. And indeed is a mode likely to be enabled by engineers in the event of a stall, which would explain the reputed 5-10 minute gap between the stall and the dispatch of the fated train. I supposed it's possible that this mode was enabled, and the train was then accidentally dispatched by a button press; with the failsafes disabled this would presumably be feasible.
 
At this point it's all speculation. You should go and read the comments left by 'roller coaster experts' on Alton Towers Facebook page (it was sarcasm by the way). I had to stop after reading two comments. I don't know why people bother replying, it's not the facts these people need, it's an education.
 
I wonder if people will start to think twice about moaning when a ride is closed for 'Technical Difficulties' in the future, and possibly think that it is for their own safety?

I've never been on The Smiler yet as I'm waiting for my son to be tall enough so that we can go on together. We go to AT about every other week and always go down to X-Sector where he sits on the access road and watches The Smiler. To be honest I was going yesterday, but our weather app said high wind and rain, plus with the road accidents we decided not to bother. I'm glad we didn't as it's usually around 2 when we are watching. Watching the ride seems to bring a sort of calm over him which we rarely see as he has Aspergers, and he just sits and watches in peace and silence.

But anyway back to my point, it's amazing to see how people act when the areas and rides are closed. The same question over and over "when will it be open" and "I want a refund" etc. etc. I wonder how long they will remember this incident for, but I'm guessing it won't be long before they forget and it all starts again.
 
the sun reporting lies never. Daily mail over reaction, surely not. The daily star Jodie 23 from rochdale will be distraught. They'll recover. Have to gain the trust back, but people will always return to the towers.
 
Alastair said:
Let me first say that I know nothing about coaster control systems, PLC or anything, but I've seen some rumours that the ride can be put in "manual mode" which deactivates (or bypasses) the block safety systems. And indeed is a mode likely to be enabled by engineers in the event of a stall, which would explain the reputed 5-10 minute gap between the stall and the dispatch of the fated train. I supposed it's possible that this mode was enabled, and the train was then accidentally dispatched by a button press; with the failsafes disabled this would presumably be feasible.
Click to expand...

If that's true it would be truly awful that this was used during normal running, the fact this incident happened after a technical issue does make me wonder if something was disabled to get the ride running again. I do hope this isnt the case but it does make you think. I wonder if towers will take the day to make sure all the staff are given a little training, all other rides should be checked to make sure there are no other faults and perhaps re-open on Saturday but x sector will be closed for at least a week whilst the H&S people investigate and the card are removed, i could even see some screening being put up around the section where the crash happened. No one goes to have a fun day out and end up injured but coasters are still a very safe way to have fun and I for one will be back to towers etc.
 
Really feel for the ride staff in this situation. I've had the unfortunate experience of being involved in an 'industrial accident' and it really does tear you apart. I hope is it's found to be Human error (I guess it has to be somewhere along the way) then staff are treated with compassion. In my situation I had the help of a Trade Union, such membership is (or was ) discouraged at Towers so staff will be relying on the park for support and a fair hearing.

While it's too early to talk about changing the way staff are treated in general I think the blog post above is a very interesting perspective.
 
If the system was in manual mode, then I feel awful for the person who dispatched that train. However, generally speaking from what i've seen, the engineers at Alton are usually very good, and i'd be amazed if they released a train without checking the track was clear first.

Listening and reading the press and social media this morning is laughable. Hanging upside down is really making me laugh, after it was on the news all afternoon where you could clearly see they were not. People saying they will never visit again, that Alton doesnt take safety seriously, sigh, they all seem to forget that when they step out of their front door in the morning to get in the car (or walk, or cycle) to work they are actually at a higher risk of having an accident than going on a rollercoaster.

As for the leg amputation, I think they may be believable, the press and ambulance sources keep saying "life changing injury". A broken leg or cuts and grazes isnt life changing.
 
I think the reason you get more people saying things like 'safety isn't taken seriously' and so on after a park accident is because people go on these rides to be scared. Most people go on with a thought of 'what if this breaks' but then reassure themselves in the knowledge that the ride almost certainly won't breakdown and even less certainly in a catastrophic way.

When something like this happens it causes some people's safety net to be pulled away and they lose their trust in machines that already scared the crap out of them... When it's a plane or train crash people (although they question safety and procedure) almost see it as a more likely occurrence and so brush it off as a less personal incident.
 
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