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Ride/Park Accidents

Such a shame and condolences to the families.

However people in the BBC comments section comparing this to The Smiler need to get a grip.

I'm assuming all Intamin rapids will be closed in the short term, unless the people in the boat caused the accident by messing around (not saying they did).
 
It sounds like some sort of malfunction with the conveyor causing a moving boat to hit a stationary boat then somehow the moving boat flipped over. Very concerning and tragic.

EDIT:

Trying to figure out how on earth the boat managed to flip. Looking at this photo it appears that there are largers gaps than usual between the wooden planks on the conveyor, as if two full length planks are missing between each one:

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I'm guessing that the boat got forced into one of these gaps and as the conveyor was moving it caused the boat to flip. I can't imagine just how awful that is.

:(
 
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Thats just horrific, like something out of Final Destination, how the heck did that manage to flip the boat given there are still tracks on either side for the boat to feed on to. Part of me is thinking I wonder if part of the raft had deflated and got stuck in the mechanism or if the boat was too heavy on the one side as it hit the conveyer. Truely horrific.
 
I wonder if Intamin will suggest the closure of their rapids rides. :confused:

Another dark day for the industry :(
 
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Australian news are reporting that 2 of the riders died due to being crushed by the conveyor belt and that emergency service staff were distraught by what they saw. :(

I can't imagine the horror witnessing the accident unfold, truly awful :disappointed:
 
I can't even imagine how distressing it would be for the others on the boat and for the staff watching. I don't know the layout of the ride, but if it's anything like congo, half the queue could have seen it aswell.

I think this quote says everything about how traumatic the accident would have been for those involved:
It is understood the four people killed were from two families with two of those who died mothers.

Two children in the raft are understood to have survived.
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Just for some background though, does anyone know how big the park is and whether it's likely to recover? Also, I know it's early, but does it look like intamin is to blame, or the park?
 
Leah said:
does it look like intamin is to blame, or the park?
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to be honest, i think it might (it might not) be Intamin's fault, because of the design of the conveyor system. i recon that, after the investigation, they'll be told to change it, as it's not safe with all the gaps (hence the incident). if the slats had been closer together, or it had been a continuous rubber belt, the incident wouldn't have happened.
 
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skyscraper said:
to be honest, i think it's Intamin's fault, a recon that, after the investigation, they'll be told to change the conveyor system, as it's not safe with all the gaps (hence the incident). if it had been an ordinary continuous rubber belt, the incident wouldn't have happened.
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There is no substantiating evidence to say who is at fault currently, there are some very questionable gaps in between the conveyor belt but this could have been a decision made by the park to remove them for some reason. This is also conjecture as it may not be the reason for this accident. I'd hold of playing the blame game until all the facts of the accident are made clear.
 
One thing I notice from the POV is that all the riders are wearing some kind of seatbelt, if that is the case that could actually be linked to the accident, as I imagine if the boat topped over and you are seatbelted in you wouldn't be able to move, however say it happened on a normal boat, you would other jump out the boat, or go flying as the boat tipped over.

Also according to ride times the Rapids at Towers and also Thorpe are both currently closed, it could be a coincidence or other parks may have been told to close their Rapids whilst investigators look into the cause.
 
Let's face it, if you were Merlin, you would definitely close all of yours in the current climate. The Mirror are already running the story so.....

It looks like a terrible incident. The ride is 30 years old and is one of Intamins most successful and reliable product lines the world over. This will more than likely be some operational or maintenance failure

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Eeesh, nasty. :(
As has been said, the spacing of the planks on the convayor looks like an accident waiting to happen. And I guess this is why most rapids don't have seat belts. :(
 
I do not believe this ride is manufactured by Intamin. I believe it was manufactured in house and by external engineering company's. With only the boats coming from Intamin.

I am trying to find more information to support this but nothing solid has come up for and against it being built by Intamin.

The one thing that does strongly support it not being built by Intamin, is the physical design of the ride that can be seen in the pictures and in the POV's. Certain aspects such as the complete lift hill design, the station design (specifically the mechanisms that can be seen in pics that aid the boats in going round the station) parts of the channel, pump areas and run up's to the lift do not match the look and design of every single Intamin river rapids that I've ever seen. I highly doubt they would modify the key components of a ride for just one ride and for no apparent reason. They would and do keep the key components the same, then just modify the general layouts.

For the keen eyed, it is quite easily to tell a ride made by a certain manufacturer because of 'the way' they design things. The only things that look like Intamin on this, are the boats.

The plank system that carries the boat up the lift looks sufficient in my opinion. My immediate thought and pure speculation into what happened is as follows:

The boat appears to be sitting on it's side with the compartment that passengers sit in facing the lift hill. It appears at first thought that the boat in front got stuck. The next boat has come along and hit the boat that is stuck, which due to it still being on a moving lift hill has forced the side of the boat facing the station into the air, whilst the other side of the boat is still getting traction from the lift hill. This would put the boat in that position that it is in. All Intamin Rapids that I have ever seen have sensors on the top of the lift hill that will not allow a boat to pass if the section that the untipped boat is on in the pictures, is not clear. To prevent this exact sort of thing happening.
 
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