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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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On park now. They've just been testing the reverse on the v lift. Operating again now.
 
Does this suggest that the crash was indeed caused by them putting the chain forward instead of backwards by accident then?
 
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Possibly. Interestingly, the next train was at the top of the first lift hill for 5-10 minutes then. Assumed they were going to test the reverse on that but then it was sent round the track.
 
Testing with different combinations of dummies now (various empty seats). Hate to say this but it came through the bat wing very slowly.
 
Paul said:
Possibly. Interestingly, the next train was at the top of the first lift hill for 5-10 minutes then. Assumed they were going to test the reverse on that but then it was sent round the track.
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Interesting, that's what happened June 2nd wander if they are testing all scenarios
 
I doubt it's related to the 'accidentally reversed' theory as its the wrong lift, plus the ride has been sat there not operating for a while now, they're probably just checking absolutely everything.
 
sianmann88 said:
Interesting, that's what happened June 2nd wander if they are testing all scenarios
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Potentially yes. If that's the case they could still have a lot left to do investigating the events, meaning it won't be open any time soon.
 
AndrewH said:
Does this suggest that the crash was indeed caused by them putting the chain forward instead of backwards by accident then?
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An interesting theory which I hadn't considered.

I don't think it confirms anything though, they're more likely trying to eliminate the probability and duration of any stoppages whatsoever. The lift hill stop on press night was a moderately-big deal in terms of media coverage. Imagine one now, the effect would be amplified massively.
 
I had a very interesting conversion with retiring H&S consultant from work this morning. He was talking about partial operation allowance. Where limited operation can take place. E.g. running a system without human payload. For testing, training and verification of new safety equipment and procedures.
He speculated that the operating we are seeing could be testing, training and verification, of the planned safety upgrades.
 
Certainly the prohibition notice prevents the opening of the ride to the public, as opposed to sending it around the track.
 
James said:
But on that basis every one of us risks our lives doing normal routine things, as a part of our daily lives/jobs.

Reporting it as something that risked lives of the workers suggests it's a risk that is unusual or unique to the accident. Which it wasn't.
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Driving a vehicle on blue lights is an unusual risk to anyone. Working on a make shift platform is an unusual risk to anyone.

Just because "it's what they get paid to do " doesn't mean they haven't risked their lives. I applaud the emergency services response as have the victims.
 
Pre hospital care is a field of work where you do it, well in a field, bedroom, boardroom, on the streets or up on scaffolding, anywhere it is needed. Working at height is awkward with the equipment needed both for the medical and fire service staff. A bottle of medical oxygen pressurised to 40 ish PSI is a danger to all if it slides and gets damaged.
The cutting equipment is heavy enought to kill if it fell. This causes a dangerous working environment at the scene.

Then there is the blue light response driving. How many times have you (if you drive) had blue light head towards you from the front or back and panicked, when people panic they do stupid and dangerous things. And this make response driving on blue lights a highly dangerous practice. Although response drivers are highly trained to lower the dangers, it is still very risky.
 
I'm starting to worry with all this testing what happened on the 2nd June is more than just human error or the system failing to detect a stalled car it may actually be an underlying flaw with the op system or the issue of stalling cars was never probably fixed and now may pose a real danger to the rides future as another stall close after re-opening would be catastrophic and maybe the reverse on the lift hill is quite sporadic pre accident to when it actually reversed the ride and not actually send it forward. I cant help but think Merlin and gerst were too optimistic with the ride I believe if the ride was built with 13 inversions stalling might not have been as frequent of an issue.
 
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I think they are just testing absolutely everything and they are likely doing engineer training too. If there has been human error everyone that ever has any at all to do with the ride needs to be retrained from the ground up as is it was new. Still got everything crossed
 
phildenholm said:
I think they are just testing absolutely everything and they are likely doing engineer training too. If there has been human error everyone that ever has any at all to do with the ride needs to be retrained from the ground up as is it was new. Still got everything crossed
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I wonder if it was too easy too put the lift hill to go forward when you meant to reverse it.
 
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