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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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^ You cant see most of the track from the ops booth, you can only visually see the brake run and last curve...
 
The control system should highlight where each car is believed to be. I can't see that it would have been missed the fact that the car valleyed - the fact that it had would be why the second car was on the lift hill. Which leads me to think they clearly wanted to evac everybody from the second car, but 'something' caused it to continue over the lift hill unintentionally
 
TomLad said:
And just like I've said before, whatever the findings are from the investigation, hopefully all parks will change what is necessary to make sure something like this can never happen again. How long it will be SNBO is another question, but knowing the good ol' English H&S standards we probably won't see an opening until either a lot later in the season or even in 2016.
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Going from what happened with RMT in 2006 (what happened yesterday is undoubtedly more serious than that), I doubt that The Smiler will be open again until at least the start of next season, if not much later than that in order for the investigation to be completed and any changes deemed necessary by the HSE investigation to be made.
 
So either the system went wrong and believed the car had then moved out of that block, or it was in manual mode when the second car went over the hill. Either way, the lift-stop should at least have been in effect as a caution
 
I think the Smiler will be closed for the rest of 2015.

It will return next year, but with a new name, new theme music and a rebranding. Just my thoughts, but dont see how it could re-open as "The Smiler" again....
 
That video with sound is awful. I feel so bad for those on the train but also those who witnessed it! My wife and daughter wait on that corner for me to come off! There will have been people there who knew people on that train. Helplessly watching. A miracle really that no one has died. There have been rollercoaster accidents in the past (even at the towers) but the proximity of the smiler track to the public means that this was witnessed by many and I fear that more mobile phone footage will be released.
 
Its all theory at the moment, but it appears that the computer system worked perfectly by e-stopping the train on the first lift hill because the block between first and second hills wasn't cleared. With reports that even with a stalled train, the queueline wasn't closed, would suggest that no one was aware of the stalled train.

I really hope its not human error.....
 
Nemesis94 said:
Human error. They were too busy looking at/working on the reason for the initial call-out. They see a line of empty trains queued up before the station and assume they are all their.
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Unlikely, they know how many cars there are, they can count how many cars are at the station. The call out would have been because of the valleyed car, and priority would have been to get people off the car behind so that the ride could be closed to remove the valleyed car
 
GaryH said:
I think the Smiler will be closed for the rest of 2015.

It will return next year, but with a new name, new theme music and a rebranding. Just my thoughts, but dont see how it could re-open as "The Smiler" again....
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EuroSatch said:
I would like to think it won't reopen... It will take a lot of convincing to the public that it's safe again..
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Then again you get incidents such as SFOT Texas Giant which reopened after only a few months, with what resulted in a death. The GP will forget about this, much like most people won't remember the incident with the RMT, except, for now, The Smiler just seems to attract much more media attention from people who've no idea what they're talking about due to its records and installation cost.
 
If it's proved to be human error, it in theory could have happened on any ride, and it is the procedures that need changing to stop it from reoccurring. In such a case the ride itself is not at fault there is nothing to stop them reopening it by the summer once the HSE have cleared it and repairs/checks are made. The Big One at Blackpool had a similar incident the year it opened, but the ride system itself was at fault, and was only closed for a month or so.
 
Would the people on the full carriage have been able to see the valleyed car from the lift hill? I'm hoping they didn't know it was there until the last moment. It's possible that a Smiler novice might assume the car was in a place it was supposed to be, rather than in the way (given that the track is quite convoluted it may not have been clear).
 
EuroSatch said:
I would like to think it won't reopen... It will take a lot of convincing to the public that it's safe again..
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Hydro at Oakwood had a death and that re-opened?

But it is the cumulative effect of several small issues then one big one that could be the issue with The Smiler. At the very least they will do the same as Oakwood did and re-name the ride when re-opening it I think.
 
They should have to account for every train in these situations, not just assume it's clear. There's cameras on the second lift and the break before it, surely someone should have noticed the empty train hadn't cleared it?

Or maybe they had noticed and didn't intend to release the full train, perhaps it's a flaw in the system or a human accident.
 
EuroSatch said:
Unlikely, they know how many cars there are, they can count how many cars are at the station. The call out would have been because of the valleyed car, and priority would have been to get people off the car behind so that the ride could be closed to remove the valleyed car
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In that case the train of riders should never have been dispatched from the station. If they had known about the valleyed train the ride should have been e-stopped well before the second train even started up the first lifthill.
 
There would be a time delay as the system would be waiting for the car to reach the break run. So when this doesn't happen as expected is when the car behind would stop, which could already have been on the lift hill - as it was
 
Personally I think if Oakwood had the money to replace it then Hydro (Drench) would have been gone years ago. It only opens for a couple of hours a day and still today it has that reputation. I'm not sure a rebranding would work for such a well known attraction, better just keep it as it is but drop it from marketing for a few years.
 
Hydro has that reputation because someone DIED on it...

If we closed every ride that had some form of incident on it, then there wouldn't be many rides left anywhere in the world... EGF should close because it derailed, TTD sheered a cable, Tower of Terror has probably caused a death/injury... Closer to home we'd lose Vampire, Fury, Stealth, Rita, Oblivion, RMT, Scorpion Express and probably loads more...
 
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