Incident on The Smiler 02/06/2015

[BarryZola]

My point really isn't to question whether or not he was or wasn't aware. In the event that he was/wasn't, I don't think his actions (specifically those which are documented by witnesses/video) deserve criticism.

I think you may have missed the point somewhat. The video etc show a man shouting after the incident. However, the man in the interview is talking about before they were released from the first lift hill, as I've picked out for you here to clarify:

"I actually saw the other carriage on the track ahead of us," he told the Mirror.

"It was at the top that we all started shouting to the staff telling them to stop.

So, I'll ask again. How did the people on the train know that there was a valleyed carriage down the opposite end of the ride out of view? Well, I won't waste time waiting for a clutching at straws reply again. Basically, in my opinion, the person being interviewed is bending the truth as there is no way they could have seen the valleyed train until they were a few seconds away from it at which point any interaction with AT staff would have been impossible. This seems to me to just be an attempt to over sensationalize a situation by this individual and the newspaper to make money (for both parties). Alton Towers have apologised unreservedly, closed the park for a surprisingly lengthy amount of time and will no doubt pay a lot of money out in compensation (rightly). However, it seems that some people want to dirty the water by stretching the truth. And it's disgraceful.

 

[blackholes crow]

The trains usually have permanent magnets on, rather than EMI ones, which require a lot of power. The ones on the lifts I do believe are just to reduce the strain on the motors when it has to stop. Again, don't quote me, but as they probably cant stop it fully, they just give a helping hand. The retractable fins are a metal that can be magnetised, but they aren't EM or permanent magnets.

Edit: Studying physics at uni next year so I have a basic/limited understanding of field theory

i work with electro magnets all the time in the recycling industry from 10 ton pulls to eddy current separators
but im sure theres a power bussbar system to activate the magnets on the train (but i could be wrong)

 

[Scott]

The trim brake fins reeeeeally aren't the issue here as others have said.

The train has stalled before and other than closing the ride for a day or so it's caused no problems. The major issue here is why the block system failed. It's a fundamental law of the industry c

 

[Dave]

i work with electro magnets all the time in the recycling industry from 10 ton pulls to eddy current separators
but im sure theres a power bussbar system to activate the magnets on the train (but i could be wrong)

Smiler uses permanent magnets.

 

[DiogoJ42]

They won't use electro magnets for the simple reason that if the power fails, so would the brakes.

 

[TomLad]

I know this seems illogical but the fact a train valley-ed is not actually relevant to the incident (it has some relevance to the quality of the ride design for sure). Block rules should be absolute, that is what is relevant. The whole point of the block system is to protect against a valley-ed train.



The breaks on the lift protect against a lift-hill roll back so do the same thing the roll-back dogs do on a traditional system. They had nothing to do with this incident as they don't affect a train in forward motion.

Oh I know that the valleying isn't the issue, just my own odd curiosity
Also aware with the anti-rollback system, just trying my best to explain the magnet situe on The Smiler. Slightly, a lot, off topic, I know

 

[AirFAN]

I want you to think about this seriously and honestly. How when facing the opposite direction and looking up into the air could they have known that there was a valleyed carriage at the opposite bottom end of the track?

I think you may have missed the point somewhat. The video etc show a man shouting after the incident. However, the man in the interview is talking about before they were released from the first lift hill, as I've picked out for you here to clarify:

"I actually saw the other carriage on the track ahead of us," he told the Mirror.

"It was at the top that we all started shouting to the staff telling them to stop.

So, I'll ask again. How did the people on the train know that there was a valleyed carriage down the opposite end of the ride out of view? Well, I won't waste time waiting for a clutching at straws reply again. Basically, in my opinion, the person being interviewed is bending the truth as there is no way they could have seen the valleyed train until they were a few seconds away from it at which point any interaction with AT staff would have been impossible. This seems to me to just be an attempt to over sensationalize a situation by this individual and the newspaper to make money (for both parties). Alton Towers have apologised unreservedly, closed the park for a surprisingly lengthy amount of time and will no doubt pay a lot of money out in compensation (rightly). However, it seems that some people want to dirty the water by stretching the truth. And it's disgraceful.

For the record, I won't answer you not because I don't have a valid point - a point in which you have brazenly decided to dismiss in order to pursue your own agenda, but because I don't appreciate your quite frankly rude and condescending tone.

 

[rightbackgranty]

For the record, I won't answer you not because I don't have a valid point in which you have brazenly decided to dismiss in order to pursue your own agenda, but because I don't appreciate your quite frankly rude and condescending tone.

Barry has got a point though. I don't blame the bloke for being upset but the story does reek a little of exaggeration. Whether he's confabulating to make the story more interesting in the wake of trauma (it happens) or it's press mediated we won't know. IF false, his statement that makes the park look intentionally negligent could be damaging - whether he intends that or not.

It does irritate me that 'the individual' can get away with saying whatever he wants yet 'the collective' (ie Alton Towers) would be strung up (quite rightly) if they were to turn around and say something as ludicrous as 'the riders demanded to be moved up the lift hill so its all their fault'.

We live in a world where the law says innocent until proven guilty but the general public demand the opposite. I've overheard or read so many comments that can be grouped into 'Alton Towers clearly don't give a damn and they're criminally negligent' despite no solid evidence or formal investigation being released. Comments hurt and can ruin both lives and businesses.

 

[Rick]

The train has stalled before and other than closing the ride for a day or so it's caused no problems. The major issue here is why the block system failed. It's a fundamental law of the industry c

No one is sure if it did fail. If anything, it sounds like it did its job and stopped the train at the top of lift 1.

Then, something happened.

 

[AirFAN]

Barry has got a point though. I don't blame the bloke for being upset but the story does reek a little of exaggeration. Whether he's confabulating to make the story more interesting in the wake of trauma (it happens) or it's press mediated we won't know. IF false, his statement that makes the park look intentionally negligent could be damaging - whether he intends that or not.

It does irritate me that 'the individual' can get away with saying whatever he wants yet 'the collective' (ie Alton Towers) would be strung up (quite rightly) if they were to turn around and say something as ludicrous as 'the riders demanded to be moved up the lift hill so its all their fault'.

We live in a world where the law says innocent until proven guilty but the general public demand the opposite. I've overheard or read so many comments that can be grouped into 'Alton Towers clearly don't give a damn and they're criminally negligent' despite no solid evidence or formal investigation being released. Comments hurt and can ruin both lives and businesses.

To clarify in the simplest way I can:

My point is I think it's harsh to criticise this guys lack of understanding of how this ride (or most roller coasters for that matter) operate, regardless of whether his statement is true or not. I was replying to somebody that appeared as though they had based the article on the premise it was true. I did say 'essentially he is saying' - I did not once imply that his story whilst on the lift hill was true. I was merely suggesting his limited understanding of the ride isn't a cause for annoyance.

I'm not talking about whether or not his story is true or what his intentions might be - and went on to clarify by saying I don't believe his deserves criticism regardless of whether or not his story is true in specific relation to his understanding of roller coaster mechanics/physics. In the event his story is untrue (and I appreciate that may be the case) there was still an incident in which he was shouting "stop this f**cking ride", which was documented, and alone was enough for criticism.

My issue is not the legitimacy of that article. I apologise if I couldn't have made this any clearer.

 

[Scott]

No one is sure if it did fail. If anything, it sounds like it did its job and stopped the train at the top of lift 1.

Then, something happened.

Yeah but whatever happened undermined the blocking system or allowed it to fail / stop a dangerous situation.

I would personally class that as a major block failure.

 

[Danza91]

On the subject of comments on social media, thanks to social media people are very quick to shame people/companies regardless of context and facts. I hope that IF it is down to human error the person(s) who made the error has their identity protected (assuming it was a genuine error).

(OT: I recommend people read Jon Ronson's book on public shaming, it's a real eye opener)

 

[Rick]

Yeah but whatever happened undermined the blocking system or allowed it to fail / stop a dangerous situation.

I would personally class that as a major block failure.

It depends what mode the coaster was in when the incident took place. Also, the system is only as good as the information provided to it, after a reset or when in maintenance mode.

A scenario - A coaster (any coaster) is running 4 trains, it E-Stops and is reset by the tech team. A car is stalled on the track on a stretch of track without any prox switches. On restart the tech sets up the PLC for 3 train operation. The PLC discovers three trains, 1 in the station, 1 on the lift and 1 on the brakes. The visual check on the CCTV doesn't see the stalled train. The lift is restarted and the train that has been sat idle on the lift hits the stalled train.

The hardware is working perfectly, but the information that it is using is flawed. That's not a block failure.

^^ The above is not directly related to this incident, it's just a scenario.

 

[Machin]

To those asking about will the staff be paid during the park shutdown, I'm assuming they will be paid "forced holiday pay".

This is what happens in our company in the event a venue cannot operate and team members cannot be transferred to a different venue.

Basically yes they'll get paid, but it's taken from their holiday entitlement if they have any outstanding. Just my opinion though, may not be the case.

 

[DiogoJ42]

I have heard from a few sources that the staff are being paid. Which if true, is commendable.

 

[Alastair]

Well, it seems that my earlier humorous post about reversing the petition to close The Smiler wasn't far from the mark...

https://www.change.org/p/the-smiler...ign=autopublish&utm_term=mob-xs-no_src-no_msg

 

[Slugjc]

The media have again been the only negative thing about what has really happened after the crash. I saw BBC news just as they had broken the news, and the wild reporting was embarrassing. I witnessed this at my works canteen, the news of a death started immediately (via twitter) and one or two IQ challenged colleagues gave the "I aint going on one of them again" and "I was there last week said it looked dodgy." I managed to block this out and concentrate on the tele.The BBC had nothing as usual for rolling, but still kept at it. 16 people seriously injured, down to four. People left upside-down, even though the picture showed otherwise.

The papers were as bad, The scum, Daily Fail and the Daily star all seemed to rely on what rolling news was reporting and I assume try to get stories by contacting people on twitter/facebook who are claiming to be there. They wouldn't have had time to get a reporter from London to AT in time for the deadline, so make it up.

Then they are the witnesses. Some had the shaky video footage of the accident (although sky and the bbc looked ****** of it was a just after, no collision) If I was on said ride I would shout "stop the effing ride"." there is the typical, "itold them about the stalled car and was ignored!!" really, for one they could have known and already reported it. Two every ****** was telling this information. Three you lied about being ignored to make yourself look big. four the staff may have blanked who's to know.

Geoff Hurst, hat trick hero world cup winner said that they was 80,000 people at Wembley that day. I've met a million who have said they where there. I guessing this is the same with this incident. John Doe could have been in the queue for Nemmy, point a microphone at him, yep I was there in the station and saw everything.

Last thing. This to me was a resultof a slow news day. The dear old Charles Kennedy (RIP) had been announced on breakfast news, so they were bored of that already. Then there was Mr Sepp Blatter but he didn't leave his sinking ship to the evening, so this is all the news had. Another day another time it would have just been a headline. Im sure the news corporations all did a collective "AWWWW SHUCKS NOBODY DIED!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[GaryH]

Something dawned on me last night thinking about this.

Firstly, the car which was sent around and stalled. This could have been sent by an engineer to clear the blocks and reset the fault on the control panel. After it was sent, the green light came on to send the next train, the ill fated one. This was then dispatched onto the lift hill. As it started to ascend the lift hill, the next car was dispatched, as people reported being stopped at the bottom of the lift hill, looking up at the one near the top.

The ride then stopped which I believe indicates that the system had worked correctly in detecting that the empty car had not reached the vertical lift hill yet.

So, at this point, the ride op, and potentially the engineer who would still be on site would now see the fault light up again on the control panel. So its not the issue of someone sending out the train from the station, because they are already out, two of them, but who reset the system to clear the fault. I believe this can only be done by an engineer. So this then of course throws up all sorts of questions if this is the case about why the CCTV wasnt looked at, why someone didnt go and check the track.

My initial thought is that if the ride had been throwing errors all day, they could have just thought "oh well, another error, no different to earlier" and then just reset it again.

At this point people may have then run to the gate staff to alert them to the stalled train, by which point, the second car would have now cleared the lift hill and be on its unfortunate way.

 

[MichelinMan]

I disagree the media reporting has been over the top. When I watched the 10 o'clock news I think it was the 4th story, which actually surprised me - thought it might have been higher in the running order. I actually think Merlin were lucky (in a PR sense) that the FIFA story broke, as that became the massive story of the day.

I think by and large the media have got it mostly right - they have made one or two mistakes as they always will (and trust me, I have had dealings with the media following safety incidents, and they usually make bigger c*ck-ups than they have on this one) but I think they have not been too bad.

I know people on here like to defend Alton Towers, but this IS a big news story that is of interest to a wide cross section of the public. Events like this are thankfully rare (even rarer than air crashes) so when they do occur, it is not surprising the media will react to it.

 

[stoney101]

Found this on another forum, may be a bit long but its definitely an interesting read.

I’m an ex Alton Towers Resort / Merlin Entertainments employee, not to jump on the bandwagon, who's worked on The Smiler since pretty much day one. With that I’ve experienced my fair share with that ride and I want to lay out my opinion of what happened on Tuesday June 2nd;

Firstly, the trains hold no brakes, all braking is done on the track as it is with every modern rollercoaster, this prevents them from “being stuck upside down” as many a guest would ask on a regular bases. The trains hold a few force registering sensors that talk to the rides computer when it comes back into the station. The only real contact the computer has with the trains is in the station where harnesses are locked and checked however throughout the track there are proximity sensors that communicate with the rides computer, these sensors are dotted around the ride and and give the Operator a rough position of where each train is. (As far as I'm aware, there are no proximity sensors on the Batwing part of the ride however don't quote me on that).

Secondly, a block section is a section of track where a train should be able to successfully start and successfully stop, failing this the rides computer, with data from the proximity sensors, should flag up an error on the Operators panel. This error should, under no circumstances be able to be overridden.

Thirdly, when ANY ride at Alton Towers Resort brakes down or suffers from technical difficulties a member of the technical services team will be present alongside the Operator because the Operators aren't taught how fix these massive machines. Whether its just turn a key and press reset a member of the Technical Services team will be there, and depending how big the fault a member of the Park Operations management team as well. That’s usually why it takes so long during technical hiccups.

Going off assumption, and I stress that massively, the position of the trains before the incident may have been as follows;
-Train 1 stalled in the batwing section of the ride
-Train 2 held at the top of Lift 1 because the computer has realised Train 1 has stalled and called an E-Stop on the ride
-Train 3 would have guests on it in the station
-Train 4 would have been postponed just behind Train 3, in waiting position 2
-Train 5 would have been behind Train 4 on the transfer track.

In the Operators cabin there are two massive 37” TV screens holding around 12 cameras each, including parts of the rides building like baggage but also certain sections of the ride itself, for example Lift 1 has two cameras pointing at it and there are also cameras pointing at other key braking sections. However the Batwing loop doesn't have its own independent camera, but you can see it out of the corner of a few other cameras on the screens.

So down to what might have actually happened; The Smiler goes down with a technical difficulty with Train 1, Tech Services are called to the ride, register and clear the fault on the panel and tell the Operator to send Train 1 empty in “Code Zero”. Code Zero basically means that the Operator has full control over every brake section on the ride, sometimes the ride requires it to be in Code Zero to send a faulty train from the station or from any brake or Lift section of the ride. The Operator does so under instruction from Tech Services. Now because it was so late in the day Train 1 should have successfully, but slowly made it round the block section between Lift 1 and Brake 3 as the trains wheels would be warm enough and cause less friction than when they're cold.
The only way Train 1 would have stalled where it did is either a gust of wind was blowing and caused to stall, or the ride was Emergency Stopped. When the ride is emergency stopped every brake flies up and stops every train when they reach these brake sections, however The Smiler has two air time hills on it, both occupied by Trim Brakes which control the speed of the trains as they go around each block sections. When an E-Stop is pressed on The Smiler every brake flies up and locks, including these Trim Brakes, if every trim brake flies up then Train 1, whether it was full of guests or not would have stalled in the Batwing section.

Whether it was the wind or a ride fault that caused the trim brakes to react that way the rides computer would have flagged up another error which would have then again be cleared and registered by Tech Services, at this point Management should have been called to the ride to organise an area and ride evacuation. Keep in mind that there are reports that this stalled train stayed halted in that section of track for more than five minuets, a member of staff should have noticed and altered the Operator.

This means that in the Operators cabin there would be at least 2 people, depending if management were called, 3 people. At this point the Operator is doing things that Tech Services and potentially management have approved, because the ride was in Code Zero, it means the computer thinks that someone who knows what they're doing is now operating the ride, which in this case would have been the rides Operator under Tech Services instruction, in this mode all the brake and lift sections can be controlled individually, meaning Lift 1, where Train 2 halted could have and was jogged to clear and in result crashed into Train 1.

Failing that, because every brake and lift section of the ride can be controlled individually this may also mean that the Operator or Tech Services selected the wrong area to clear. The Operator has realised Train 1 has stalled and called for an evacuation, hence why Train 2 was at the top of Lift 1 for 5-10 mins. The Operator has been told to evacuate the area by management and has been told to get the 4 other trains as close to the station as possible, this means Lift 1 should have had its reverse mode initiated and instead of going forwards, rolled backwards (which it can do) to the bottom of the lift hill where an easy evacuation could have taken place instead of on the precipice of the lift hill.

From all that I’ve discussed in this, you can draw two conclusions with two faults;
Conclusion one:
-Human Error: The Operator was told to send Train 2 over Lift 1
-Ride Error: The computer should have stepped in, even in Code Zero and alerted the Operator and Tech Services about Train 1
Conclusion two:
-Human Error: The Operator has intended to reverse Train 2 down Lift 1 and made a mistake in that process
-Ride Error: The computer should have stepped in and refused the request to send Train 2 forwards.

In summary, if we had to point blame, I’d blame the rides manufacture, Gerstlauer, for implementing a manual mode (Code Zero) system that can seemingly bypass the safety system, it may just be a bug in the code but its something that should've been prevented and the ride should've stopped it from happening. It was probably a simple mistake, like the direction go Lift 1, its just a shame the ride didn't step in and stop it.

Either way we wont know what really happened until the investigation is complete, and even then we won’t know the real deal, the only people who will know what happened that way will be the Operator and whoever else was in that cabin with them.

Just one more thing to add, Alton Towers Resort and Merlin Entertainments do some of the best ride training in the industry, we know every procedure off by hand, the rides team would have done all they could to initiate and evacuation and alert Park Control of the incident but when you've only got a minimum of 13 staff and probably nearing 3,000 guests in that area it can be a challenge and I'm sure the team did well.

Sorry for such a long post by the way, however I hope its shed some light onto what could've happened. Also this will be the only post I complete on this forum because of my relationship with Alton Towers Resort.