Ride/Park Accidents

[Skyscraper]

A young teenager fell to his death on the drop tower at Icon Park in Orlando last night.

The guest's restraint appears to fail at the moment of deaccerlation in a video doing the rounds. Horrific to watch.

I'm surprised it doesn't have seatbelts (connecting the OTSR to the seat, like a lot of rides have) to be honest. Likely that adding those could be one of the recommendations following the investigation.

RIP.

 

[Rob]

That is shocking. Very important to work out what went wrong there seeing as it is a brand new ride.

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

That’s such a terrible tragic accident. My kids are nervous about these kind of rides but I always tell them that there is nothing to worry about as you are perfectly safe and that the restraints will always hold you in safely. This is so sad that this accident happened, and of course all eyes will be on the investigation to established exactly how this happened.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

That's a horrific incident, thoughts go to the poor lad's family and friends. This shouldn't have happened, clearly - hope they get to the bottom of what's gone wrong there.

 

[Burbs]

I wonder if other Funtime towers will close as a result during the investigation.

 

[Skyscraper]

I wonder if other Funtime towers will close as a result during the investigation.

Yeah I was thinking about that. Especially Highlander at Hansa Park which is exactly the same as Freefall, just shorter.

 

[Rick]

I just unwittingly opened a video in a Whatsapp group that appears to show the incident, if 'real', it appears to show the kid fall as the gondola hits the the fins on the tower, or perhaps not long after.

Very sad. This stuff just shouldn't happen.

 

[MattyH]

Thoughts with those who are involved and had to witness this. A fun day out that ended in tragedy.

Just a note this is the same park where an employee died in 2020 on the star flyer ride

 

[pluk]

From photos it appears the lad is of quite a massive frame. I'm going to bet he was outside the limits of of the restraints capabilities. No slight on the deceased of course, there should be things in place to prevent riding being possible if that's the case.

 

[jmc]

Tremendously sad, and certainly not the riders fault, but early images do appear to indicate he was too big for the restraint. If the ride system allows for the gondola to operate with a restraint at such a degree, then shame on the manufacturer.


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[Rick]

On modern rides there is typically something that will stop someone "of exceptional size" ever being dispatched on these things - will be interesting to see what the outcome is on this.

 

[Skyscraper]

On modern rides there is typically something that will stop someone "of exceptional size" ever being dispatched on these things - will be interesting to see what the outcome is on this.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were made to add seatbelts to the restraints.

 

[Rick]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were made to add seatbelts to the restraints.

Possibly, but the more modern approach is typically that a proximity sensor is a more valid measure of 'fit' than a seatbelt.

 

[BigShadowtinytree]

Just tragic, and easily preventable. Poor lad RIP.

 

[Alsty]

It seems odd that a restraint / control system would consider a restraint closed and locked in a position that cannot safely accommodate a rider.

 

[Craig]

Obviously there's a lot of social media attention on this incident at the moment. If people wish to look for images/videos then that's their choice. However, under no circumstances are any images or videos of the incident, the victim or the run up to it be posted on TowersStreet. It's just not acceptable considering someone's kid has died.

 

[Josh555]

Christ, I’m going to Florida in a couple months and was planning on riding this but I’ll be giving it the swerve after that, I’ve always had suspicions about these inter city fun fair style parks and they keep being proven right.

 

[jmc]

As Craig has said, the video isnt the place for here. But I must say, what is truly horrifying by it, is what appears to be a complete lack of care for the individuals state, but a chillingly calm conversation between the ops about who was to blame, within seconds. Sickening.


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[RicketyCricket]

The gap is huge between the restraint and the seat and it looks like he's slipped out underneath as it's hit the brakes. Absolutely horrible.

A terrible design flaw and no fault of the ride staff.

 

[Craig]

It's such an awful incident on a ride type I've been on at Hansa. Just like when The Smiler incident occurred, you simply don't expect something like that to happen with new ride hardware. It's easy to lay into the staff's reaction to the incident, but shock does very strange things to people. It can literally disconnect you from the reality of what's just happened, so I don't think their instantaneous reactions should necessarily be taken as being done with any sort of intent to be like that.

I'm going to speculate here with my own personal views, obviously the truth will come out in the official report. The restraints on Funtime's drop towers are designed to wrap around the rider, with a V shape on the OTSR that sits down in between your legs and curvature to allow the restraint to sit against the thighs. Likewise on the seat base, a curvature goes around the bottom of the thighs with a raised part in-between - very similar to many coaster restraints but more contoured. This photo from Midway Mayhem on Twitter during the construction of the rides gives a view of the system:



Now I do believe the restraint was locked, the ride wouldn't have dispatched otherwise, but I do agree with @RicketyCricket in that the height at which OTSR was locked resulted in them falling out. Where this design ultimately fails is due to those with larger upper bodies.

If the restraint can't go down any further due to someone's shoulders due to them being tall or being larger in the chest or stomach due to being obese, the shape of the restraint at the bottom is pointless as it is nowhere near securing against the thighs or near to the seat base. Without that v shape securing further down working in tandem with the seat base, it quickly renders that safety feature useless. I would even go so far to say that the raised part of the seat base probably contributed to the poor kid falling out so easily due to the very sloped angle:



Gut feeling is that seatbelts would've likely preventing this incident occurring. The wings on the OTSR, the wings on the seat base and the rails at the side would have probably preventing them slipping out. Interestingly, Funtime also produce slingshot rides, and their current generation (also installed at ICON park) use the exact same seat design but with seatbelts (thanks again to Midway Mania).



So questions will no doubt be asked as to why seatbelts were determined to be required for the slingshot, but not for the drop tower. One could argue that it's due to the differing forces, but then again this drop down after all does tilt and does drop and subsequently brake with substantial force. I could also see the seat bases being redesigned and much stricter minimum close requirements on the rides.

I would be interested to see if the TUV in Germany asked for any stronger rules/requirements on Highlander than what was setup on ICON Park's model. I simply cannot see the TUV being anywhere near happy with a ride that's able to be dispatched with a restraint sitting that high. I seem to remember a harness recheck being carried out on one of our rides, and it was definitely nowhere near as high as it appears to have been sitting in this incident.