The Smiler Incident 02/06/15

[ASturge21]

This is literally the only thing that surprised me. The fact that the empty vehicle actually stayed at the top of Inv. 6 for a good 20 seconds. Along with everything else that day, some pretty astronomical odds for that to happen!

Your only talking about 0.5 mph less wind speed or higher car speed and the whole thing wouldn't of happened. Tiny margins.

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[Nickolai]

However you could say things happen for a reason...

[theparklifekid]

Sadly, I have a bad feeling that due to the recent event at Drayton, The Smiler will probably get some more hate from the press...

[Stan.H]

Sadly, I have a bad feeling that due to the recent event at Drayton, The Smiler will probably get some more hate from the press...

Abdul Hasil, 30, from east London, said he was on a day trip to the park and began "panicking" and asking staff what had happened.
He said that not knowing what was going on "increases the panic, especially after what happened with the Smiler at Alton Towers."
Five people were seriously injured in a collision on the Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers, also in Staffordshire, in June 2015.

Sorta...

[Aidan Lowe]

Leah & Joe have been discussing their compensation claims on a channel 5 show. Article here.

Joe received £100,000 whereas Leah's claim should be resolved next year and be in the region of £2 million.

[OhShambhala]

I'm all for them getting compensation, they deserve it at the end of the day, but should they really be discussing the amounts on national tv? It just seems a bit wrong to me.

[timmy1372]

https://queue-times.com/parks/1/rides/4640

Who even still buys these "newspapers" find some real news!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... again.html

[Aidan Lowe]

I saw this yesterday, a fair few people on social media were tagging news outlets in their posts. Its pathetic this is what it has come to.

To be fair though this seems to have been a worse breakdown than usually and it doesn't seem the 45 minute wait was exaggerated. That is an awful long time to be waiting up there especially on the vertical lift hill.

The woman who passed out no doubt did because she let herself get so worked up to the point she probably hyperventilated etc. But it must of been a rather bad breakdown for it to be closed today. 

There is a video floating around of one of the vertical fins which I'm guessing retracted and the smiler train jerked downwards, I can imagine that would of been quite terrifying for people. Obviously they won't know about the magnetic fins and probably only think of the chain.

Our good friend the operations director is back again with another video.

[homer22422]

Another top notch piece of journalism from the telegraph....
"'We feared for our lives': Visitors stuck 'hung upside-down' on notorious Smiler ride at Alton Towers"

Ah, yet again.... these moronic individuals cannot comprehend what the term upside down actually means.... and somehow they get a well paid job as a journalist.... 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06 ... us-smiler/

[Kraken]

Leah & Joe have been discussing their compensation claims on a channel 5 show. Article here.

Joe received £100,000 whereas Leah's claim should be resolved next year and be in the region of £2 million.

I am amazed this is taking so long, given Merlins' early admission of liability & subsequent plea in the HSE court case.  
That said, I can only assume there is legal wrangling going on in the background between Merlins insurers & the lawyers acting for Leah & Joe.  Both sides will want to agree the best payout on behalf of their clients - clearly an insurer will always want a low payout, whilst a personal injury lawyer will fight for the highest.  

[fitchy]

I saw this yesterday, a fair few people on social media were tagging news outlets in their posts. Its pathetic this is what it has come to.

To be fair though this seems to have been a worse breakdown than usually and it doesn't seem the 45 minute wait was exaggerated. That is an awful long time to be waiting up there especially on the vertical lift hill.

The woman who passed out no doubt did because she let herself get so worked up to the point she probably hyperventilated etc. But it must of been a rather bad breakdown for it to be closed today. 

There is a video floating around of one of the vertical fins which I'm guessing retracted and the smiler train jerked downwards, I can imagine that would of been quite terrifying for people. Obviously they won't know about the magnetic fins and probably only think of the chain.

Our good friend the operations director is back again with another video.

In terms of them being stuck 45 for minutes its completly plausable time in relation to the fact they released guests from the ride so was it 45 minutes to get the last guest off and say 10 minutes for the first, it also depends where they were evacuated on the verticle lift hill as you are evacuated 1 guest at a time if the ride was evacuated from where it stopped, I completed a evac from Saw which only has 8 people on from the lift and it took a substantial amount of time.

[Capt.Barnacles]

Having spoken to a personal friend who is a Smiler host yesterday, the topic eventually came up and everyone was sat up on both lifts for 45 minutes together. Also worth noting that Lift 2 isn't evacuated 1 guest at a time since only the operator does Lift 2 evacs, meaning there's one member of staff maybe 2 if the relief operator is present at the time as well, and the evacuation basket can hold 6 people staff inclusive. So you're looking at 4, maybe 5 guests taken down at a time. More likely to be 4, doing a whole row at once.

[Nickolai]

In a situation like that, can they not lower the trains down the lifts with the brake fins. Or is that only used in a certain situation?

[Capt.Barnacles]

Sometimes they can, but only if it's safe to do so. I'm not overly familiar with the exact procedures word for word, I just know what I pick up from conversations.

[Rob]

Leah & Joe have been discussing their compensation claims on a channel 5 show. Article here.

Joe received £100,000 whereas Leah's claim should be resolved next year and be in the region of £2 million.

The settlement figure Joe received has not been released. All that was stated was that the settlement was six figures.