The Smiler Incident 02/06/15

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
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scottwsmith
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The General Public are definitely not on Alton's side; I just hope it doesn't effect the company too badly
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MerlinFan
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Oh my goodness it's just terrible! Those poor people - I pray they will be OK after this. I just can't imagine how terrifying this must have been for them!

I adore The Smiler and really don't want to stop riding it but seeing this is going to make me think twice now. My thoughts go out to the victims and the staff - I'll bet it's knocked them for six too! Would hate to be them right now.
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Morgan
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It seems Nick Varney has arrived on site.
I think this is seriously going to damage Towers. :(
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TomL
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This is all so shocking to hear just 2 days after it's second birthday, my thoughts go out to all those on the train involved, on park and everyone else affected by this including all the ride operators and hosts on duty who had to deal with what sounded like such panic. I have every faith that Towers, Merlin and Gerstlauer will do whatever they can in this situation, cooperating alongside emergency services and investigators. I jsut can't believe that it happened to such a modern, new system but it just goes to show and everyone globally in the industry will learn from what has happened after the investigation takes place.
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MerlinFan
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It's not going to stop me going - I generally have a lot of faith in the safety of UK theme parks. But when dealing with technology, things sadly do go wrong from time to time. The chances of it happening are miniscule in the bigger picture - you're probably more likely to be hurt in a car crash then a rollercoaster incident and people should realise that riding these machines does involve a small element of possible risk.

We must not be unsupportive of our favourite theme park - it doesn't look good now but new safety developments will be the result of this and that can only be for the better.
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JBragg1
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Have you seen this video

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CJH
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Reading some ridiculas theories on here:
I wouldn't put the operator or ride staff in the firing line so quickly.
Two options I feel
1) ride system didn't stop the train from entering a block that was already in use from another train.
2) tech services was actually in control of the ride and had over rided the system to allow a train to be sent. This isn't the ops fault but tech services. Same as 13 would auto e stop if a train entered lift 2 whilst one still in drop zone. Only tech services can over ride the system.
Sad accident but feel a lot of people on here have jumped to conclusions far too quick. And also that video is full of non facts, like he knows what has happened.
Could be a ride fault or tech services, the ride would not allow for this to happen unless a fault with its system in which it hasn't flagged up.
Blaming ride staff is awful must be a terrible ordeal regardless!
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vikkimoo
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I really hope that everyone involved is ok and that their injuries heal quickly and without complications. I also hope that the ride team at the time get some care as well, they're gonna be feeling pretty horrendous too I would imagine. There's clearly been a serious cock up somewhere, and it'll come out in the investigation I'm sure; hopefully we'll get the full story. It's really scary to see just how much the ride cars' floors have buckled :-s

I've been looking at AT's Twitter feed and I can't believe the people who are complaining that X Sector/The Smiler being closed has "ruined their day"...
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Adam.W
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It is not the ops fault.

The op is able to dispatch trains no what or how soon it has been since the last has been dispatched. How most rollercoaster ride systems in the world work is that no 2 trains enter one track section at a time, and are held there until a sensor on the other end of the ride is met. This sensor is very hard to be triggered by something else, and would involve going onto the track. The system is meant to automatically e-stop if the sensor at the end of the section of track isn't met after a certain amount of time, as an automatic thing in the event of a stall. What happened in the case of the smiler is that 2 trains went in the same section of track at the same time, resulting in a stall, therefore this. It is the system's fault, not the ride op's.
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d404jamie
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I was in the queue line yesterday (right up in the boarding station) at 5:20pm ready to get on before it stopped due to unknown reasons. We were waiting for 10/15 minutes before a tech guy came in and sent two empty test carriages around. Then after he left, the ride reopened for the last of us queuing.

So I agree with CJH above that its probably not the ride staffs fault because they let the tech guy take over during the test runs. After reading about what has happened today, did they only send 1 empty carriage round or 2, like they did yesterday?
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JammyBand
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Some of the comments I've read on twitter about the incident are terrible. To see so many of the public jumping to conclusions and to see the media blowing this out of proportion is so, so annoying.

I looked up some statistics and found that
The chance of dying in a car crash in 1 in 6,700.
The chance of dying on a roller coaster is 1 in 750 MILLION.
Thats 111940 times less likely!!

I find it disappointing that their safety record has been so tarnished after this, it's really going to affect them as a company and it's likely that its not even their fault. :/
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Vladimir Bobinski
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scottwsmith wrote:The General Public are definitely not on Alton's side; I just hope it doesn't effect the company too badly
They never have been even on a good day, just look Alton Towers or Thorpe's twitter page on any given day, imbreds posting "I think I deserve a fast pass because Air just broke down, I was in the queue 10 minutes".

In this situation, they right not to go running in with statements and just get on with caring for the victims of the incident, unfortunately the public will speculate based on their expert knowledge of engineering & systems combined with expectation of human error with an added dash of news bias, as to what caused it.

I really have no idea why newspapers, news stations are taking eye witness statements, I think one went along the lines of "but it wasn't very high", I think momentum is more of an issue.

Regards the bent floor panel, that doesn't really surprise me, it always felt paper thin getting onto it, felt like you were going to go through it.
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Vladimir Bobinski
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sum1mad wrote:It is not the ops fault.

The op is able to dispatch trains no what or how soon it has been since the last has been dispatched. How most rollercoaster ride systems in the world work is that no 2 trains enter one track section at a time, and are held there until a sensor on the other end of the ride is met. This sensor is very hard to be triggered by something else, and would involve going onto the track. The system is meant to automatically e-stop if the sensor at the end of the section of track isn't met after a certain amount of time, as an automatic thing in the event of a stall. What happened in the case of the smiler is that 2 trains went in the same section of track at the same time, resulting in a stall, therefore this. It is the system's fault, not the ride op's.
I pointed this out earlier on, if it was 2 cars full of people, The Smiler as much as a mess it is very simple, 3 sections (---) that should never be occupied by more than one carriage, Station---Lift---Lift---Station, plus the station it self. I would have ruled out human error straight away, but I'm just curious if there is any chance of a system fault combined with human error, if an empty train was going around, there is the possibility of an engineer being on site, a lot of panels have engineer mode which allows them to perform more manual control of the ride, i.e. individual lift control.

This of course is wild speculation and imagination, I just feel sorry for anyone involved, including the Alton Staff, amusing lack of any inept judgement.
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TheOutpatient
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I really hope the 4 people hurt will be ok. In the metro they are described as having "serious leg injuries" which though painful, I hope is the only injuries they have. I hope the rumor about one person dying isn't true.
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Stellafella
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Here is my confusion, and also what leads me to believe that media doesn't help.
Ive ridden the smiller probably 100 times and always look up at the ride op cos im a bit of a geek and want to see what they do.
Now im thinking the ride op is the guy in the window up in the loading station.
Everyone is reported to be saying they were screaming at the staff to say that a train was still on the track.

So what confuses the hell out of me is what staff were they telling? When you up in the loading bay you cant see the track. There aint any staff in the queue line.
This makes the comments of they were telling staff and the staff still let train go seem odd.
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RCandrew
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Stellafella wrote:Here is my confusion, and also what leads me to believe that media doesn't help.
Ive ridden the smiller probably 100 times and always look up at the ride op cos im a bit of a geek and want to see what they do.
Now im thinking the ride op is the guy in the window up in the loading station.
Everyone is reported to be saying they were screaming at the staff to say that a train was still on the track.

So what confuses the hell out of me is what staff were they telling? When you up in the loading bay you cant see the track. There aint any staff in the queue line.
This makes the comments of they were telling staff and the staff still let train go seem odd.
I'm thinking if the queue was long and went outside, that the people out there could see so we're shouting down the queue all the way to the inside?
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Stellafella
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But if there outside they cant see whats happeinng inside??
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Air15
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Well at least we may be getting new trains for The Smiler, well that's if there gonna keep the thing.
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Vladimir Bobinski
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Stellafella wrote:But if there outside they cant see whats happeinng inside??
They have cameras covering sections of the track, but the operator I would assume would have no reason to track every train through the 3 block sections of the ride.
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Dan
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Stellafella wrote:But if there outside they cant see whats happeinng inside??
People outside the ride may have been telling the Smile Assistant who stands at the ride entrance.
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