Fatalities on Australian theme park ride

[limpsfield]

Just breaking now, talk of four dead at the Dreamworld theme park on Australia's Gold Coast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37759162

[Driver101]

It sounds really nasty.

I wonder how they ended up getting trapped in the conveyor belt? Did they get out or were they thrown out?


I never realised that River Rapids went as fast as 45kph. Normally they are really slow.

[limpsfield]

I think there's a press conference in a bit but reports saying that it flipped over towards the end of the ride.

[Tony Starks]

Seems 2 cars collided, causing 1 to flip. Trapping 2 underwater and 2 caught in the conveyor system. Very sad for what should be family fun.

[316Mining]

Tony Starks said:

Seems 2 cars collided, causing 1 to flip. Trapping 2 underwater and 2 caught in the conveyor system. Very sad for what should be family fun.

very odd though. this ride has been running for years. Its about 30 years old according to reports.
Not unusual for these rafts to collide - happens all the time at Thorpe Park.

And the speed at the conveyor is walking pace. That's if the rides name is being reported correctly.

Nasty, nasty way to go.

Age of the riders affected will be interesting. I cant see how this raft can flip in normal use. Hopefully the area will be covered by CCTV and the authorities will be able to see if the ride is faulty or if the riders have been doing something they shouldn't have been doing.

[MitchT]

316Mining said:

I cant see how this raft can flip in normal use.

It appears that the rear end of the raft has been dragged down by the conveyor where the conveyor disappears underwater. Maybe the the front end of the raft rode up over the rear of the one in front, thus tipping it backwards and creating the possibility for this to happen.

Looks like such a benign ride too - the type that people who don't like scary rides would be happy to go on.

[Hosenbugler]

This is very nasty. A link via MSN quotes a witness as saying that a "mother ,father and Uncle are all dead" . Other reports are noting a young girl crying who was in the ride.

Not good.

[316Mining]

MitchT said:

Looks like such a benign ride too - the type that people who don't like scary rides would be happy to go on.

Very much this, kind of ride that families take their nippers on whilst the older kids go on the thrill rides.


The pictures arent making much sense to me at the moment. Yes it looks like the front of the raft may have been dragged down, but the conveyor at that point doesn't go down, it rotates upwards so shouldn't drag the front of the raft down it should rotate it upwards and onto the conveyor.

Unless it had somehow gone into reverse?????

[MitchT]

316Mining said:

The pictures arent making much sense to me at the moment. Yes it looks like the front of the raft may have been dragged down, but the conveyor at that point doesn't go down, it rotates upwards so shouldn't drag the front of the raft down it should rotate it upwards and onto the conveyor.

The incident has happened at the end of the ride - The conveyor goes down at that point. The conveyor takes the rafts uphill from the rapids and deposits them in the start/finish area before they head down the rapids again. It's the rear end of the raft that's been dragged down where the conveyor goes down in order to loop back to the point where it picks the rafts up.

[316Mining]

MitchT said:

316Mining said:

The pictures arent making much sense to me at the moment. Yes it looks like the front of the raft may have been dragged down, but the conveyor at that point doesn't go down, it rotates upwards so shouldn't drag the front of the raft down it should rotate it upwards and onto the conveyor.

The incident has happened at the end of the ride - The conveyor goes down at that point. The conveyor takes the rafts uphill from the rapids and deposits them in the start/finish area before they head down the rapids again. It's the rear end of the raft that's been dragged down where the conveyor goes down in order to loop back to the point where it picks the rafts up.

Yeah I see what your saying - its the area where they are supposed to get off the rafts then?
I thought they were saying it was the area where the raft is initially picked up to go back up to the start. But it appear to be the drop off point.

It should be covered by CCTV then.

[MitchT]

Yeah, it's where the raft is deposited back into the water by the conveyor at the end of the ride. One of the channels reporting the incident had a YouTube video of a complete ride from a passenger's perspective so it made perfect sense.

[316Mining]

MitchT said:

Yeah, it's where the raft is deposited back into the water by the conveyor at the end of the ride. One of the channels reporting the incident had a YouTube video of a complete ride from a passenger's perspective so it made perfect sense.

Hard to believe this rides been operating for near thirty years apparently - how can this happen after probably millions of times a rafts been deposited back there?

Wonder if there's been any recent changes to its operation or configuration?

[Moonhawk]

Whist obviously terrible for those involved - I was thinking when this was announced on the BBC news this morning what relevance this has to people here in the UK.

Does the BBC go looking for bad news stories from across the globe just to fill up the air time. Are theme park accidents 'flavour of the month' or something?

People are killed in accidents day in day out all across the globe. What purpose does reporting them on the other side the globe serve (other than to skew people's perspective or perception of risk).

[tight fart]

Spokesman an the news "they sustained injuries that were incompatible with living "
Odd way to put it, very sad.

[Otispunkmeyer]

316Mining said:

MitchT said:

Yeah, it's where the raft is deposited back into the water by the conveyor at the end of the ride. One of the channels reporting the incident had a YouTube video of a complete ride from a passenger's perspective so it made perfect sense.

Hard to believe this rides been operating for near thirty years apparently - how can this happen after probably millions of times a rafts been deposited back there?

Wonder if there's been any recent changes to its operation or configuration?

Perhaps its just one of those things. Extremely extremely rare, but one day all those monkeys will produce a legible sentence.

[Foliage]

316Mining said:

Hard to believe this rides been operating for near thirty years apparently - how can this happen after probably millions of times a rafts been deposited back there?

Wonder if there's been any recent changes to its operation or configuration?

Possible old and badly maintained mechanism, the raft didn't unclip from the belt and was dragged under.

[-Z-]

Design fault IMO. Massive gaps between the slats, seems like the rubber skirt has got caught in between 2 slats and been dragged down. As per 2nd pic other rides have slats much closer together. Also too big a gap between the conveyor and subsequent disembarkation platform.

[url]



|http://thumbsnap.com/4mQtDsXn[/url]

[durbster]

Moonhawk said:

Whist obviously terrible for those involved - I was thinking when this was announced on the BBC news this morning what relevance this has to people here in the UK.

Does the BBC go looking for bad news stories from across the globe just to fill up the air time. Are theme park accidents 'flavour of the month' or something?

People are killed in accidents day in day out all across the globe. What purpose does reporting them on the other side the globe serve (other than to skew people's perspective or perception of risk).

I'm sure other theme park events play a factor but tens of thousands of Brits travel to Australia each year, and a good chunk of them will visit the Gold Coast.

On top of that, you have many more with family out there, so there's a distinct possibility of a link to the UK.

[arfursleep]

Moonhawk said:

Whist obviously terrible for those involved - I was thinking when this was announced on the BBC news this morning what relevance this has to people here in the UK.

Does the BBC go looking for bad news stories from across the globe just to fill up the air time. Are theme park accidents 'flavour of the month' or something?

People are killed in accidents day in day out all across the globe. What purpose does reporting them on the other side the globe serve (other than to skew people's perspective or perception of risk).

It's a "man bites dog" story though, go somewhere to have safe fun but don't come home tied in with that it's very rare that accidents occur in amusement parks as rides are very much designed to fail safe. That makes it "news".

Smiler incident last year at Alton was treated in similar way - although that had a direct human error element (operators deliberately reset the system to clear what they thought were false error messages) whereas this accident appears to be indirect human error (lack of maintenance, lack of observation etc).

[Smollet]

Sadly accidents happen everyday.