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Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

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Jesus, thoughts are with those guys.
 
Such a nasty incident to happen, although fortunate that it wasn't a full train being sent. I hope those injured make a quick recovery.

I have to get a bit serious for a second though, and urge people to be sensible in their discussion in this topic. This is an incident that has just occurred, and whilst discussion about it is fine please don't post wild speculation. You know the sort of stuff "I heard from someone who works there...." etc. Statements like that are found to not be true can potentially cause serious harm to this site. I'll also be splitting off discussion about this incident into a separate topic shortly.

For those just joining us, a quick roundup from TowersStreet News:

Four people are reported to have been seriously injured after two trains collided on the park’s two year old thrill coaster The Smiler. 16 people were on one train, which collided with another empty train at what is commonly known as the “Staffordshire Knot” section of the ride at around 2pm this afternoon (2nd June 2015).

The owners of Alton Towers, Merlin Entertainments have released a statement regarding the incident:

“There has been an incident on the Smiler this afternoon involving two carriages coming together on a low section of the track. One of the carriages was empty and the other had 16 guests in.

The Resort’s fully qualified First Responders were on the scene immediately to assist with the evacuation which is ongoing, and the area has been closed to allow for access to emergency services vehicles. To ensure the safe and timely evacuation of guests a platform is being constructed. This will take a few minutes but will enable us to proceed more quickly.

There will be a full investigation once we have recovered the guests who are our priority.”

The West Midlands ambulance service are also on scene with 4 land ambulances and the Midlands Air Ambulance is also in attendance. A statement from the ambulance service states:

“Ambulance staff and medics are working quickly with resort staff to gain access to the seriously injured.”

This breaking news story will be continuously updated throughout the day.
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This is really awful stuff...my thoughts go out for those who were involved.
 
micksalt said:
Indeed he is, it's called defence-in-depth. The blocking system should be a last resort to prevent a collision like this, stalling shouldn't be a regular feature.

I'll always remember being told the story of John Wardley talking to Bolliger and Mabillard and querying how riders would be rescued should Nemesis stall. B&M's response: "Our coasters don't stall", and that was the end of it. Of course, Diamondback and Raptor have stalled since, but still, it was pretty ballsy to say.
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Methinks you've quoted the wrong person there and attributed it to me. ;)
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Methinks you've quoted the wrong person there and attributed it to me. ;)
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I intended to quote you, in agreement with your Morgan Freeman addition, however, I should have sub-quoted the person you were quoting, if that makes sense?

Cheers!
 
From that video, it looks like the poor chap on the front left may have impacted the back row of the first train with his face. Poor sods.
 
micksalt said:
I intended to quote you, in agreement with your Morgan Freeman addition, however, I should have sub-quoted the person you were quoting, if that makes sense?

Cheers!
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I deny all involvment in posting memes in such a serious topic. ;)
evidence
 
Oh my, I'm shocked! I always had a funny feeling about the ride after hearing the worrying stuff about bolts falling and the like, but I didn't expect something like this. I guess we can just hope everyone will be okay and follow the updates. :(
 
Thoughts go out to the injured. I imagine it's pandemonium there.

It will be interesting to see what the investigation throws up. Obviously there are design faults with the ride but how could Towers allow this to happen given previous incidents with the ride.

Surely block issues would be something the ride ops would have been aware of? (The system indicating a train has cleared a specific block when it hasn't). I mean surely this is something that's happened before without injury.

It seems a one in a billion chance that a train would stall and you would have an issue with the block system if this wasn't a regular occurrence.
 
Oh my god, this is terrible, the worst coaster accident I've seen for a while.

I hope everyone onboard is okay and makes a quick recovery.

This will now surely mean the ride is closed for the remainder of the season at least.
 
All I can think is that the 40+mph winds that BBC weather says for the park today cant have helped. Yes it most likely caused the stall in the first place, but perhaps something was picked up by the wind and triggered the block sensor by the brake run as well. It can't be human error as the computer would have completely overridden it.
 
Alternate view, Merlins shares have taken a plummeting following todays events.

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