Kingda Ka Temorarily Closed

If anyone has visited Six Flags Great Adventure's park or the website since friday, they would know that Kingda Ka is closed temporarily. I went to SFGA on sunday and there was a sign out front that said "Kingda Ka will not open today." I talked to the security guard at the entrance to the Kingda Ka area, he said that he was not allowed to tell me what was wrong with it. I looked into it and found out that on friday night at 9:45 pm something happened. Some people waiting in line for the last rides on the ride watched as they did a test run. When the train was launched, it made it over the hill but something happened as it was being launched. Spectators said that they saw sparks, flames, and a loud banging noise. This has lead me to believe that the cable that launches Kingda Ka's train has snapped. If this is what happened, the ride will be shut down for at least a couple weeks. If anyone has any information about this topic, post it.

I've heard a few things about this incident, another in a long string of technical difficulties with KK:

-First, apparently there was a cell phone loose somewhere in the launch area. Some people said that a rider got hit in the face with it shortly before the ride broke down, but I think that this is mostly unrelated with the malfunction, as a cell phone probably wouldn't cause all those sparks/noise.

-Secondly, the sparks, flames, and noise might have originated from the catch car not being stopped properly. However, this is mostly just speculation; I don't know anything for certain.

SF putting KK as down on their website is a bad thing; I would expect this delay to last a while, whatever it is!

I herd on coaster net that a camor was left in the font car of kingda ka and it lunched and the camor got caught in the wheels of the train and the ride failed to stop and everyone in line got evaded form the ride the loud noise that was herd was probably the camor getting caught in the wheels of the train and the fire was the wheels when it tried to stop the wheels had a camor in them and that would cause fruition in the wheels when it trued to stop I also herd the brakes are gone on kingda ka and the wheels are ruined so the ride will be down for a long time I guss that I am not going to be able to ride kingda ka again this year[:(] I am plaing a trip to six flags great avetre this summer so I hope that kingda ka is running by then so I can ride it. I am sorry I miss read the report on coaster net a cell phone was dropped in the cator part which is were the train gets lunched it got lunched and the train was going at 128mph when it was trying to stop and lunch at the same time and the breaks are damaged there is a report about the brakes not working right so that might be what happened to kingda ka I am hearing alot of different stories about what happened to kingda ka and I saw the sparks and the fire on the local news in my area last night before I went to bed so kingda ka is going to be down for a long time.

A cell phone had nothing to do with the breakdown. It's something mechanical. I frequent GADV often (just went there 2 days ago)and I'm a member at gadv.com, and everybody is either saying Cell Phone (wrong) or catch car malfunction. Pictures showed the cable tightly taught.

if it wasn't a cell phone that caused the break down then it probably was a the catch car that had the problem so I don't really know what happened but it was on the local news today at lunch time the good news is that know one got killed or hurt on the ride when this happened did you see it happen? I dont think that a cell phone whould cause that much damage it haded to be something maniacal wrong with the ride a cell phone whould do alot of damage to the ride if it fell at 128mph it is just something I herd on coasternet it might not be true I don't really know what happened the local news didnt say alot of what happened to kingka ka on the news it just said that it is closed because it had an asteded happen on it.

[gouldy]

I tell thee, it better not still be broked when I get there in't summer, America is a hell of a long way to travel to be told "sorry, closed"

On gadv.com, in someone's TR, they said that an employee said approximately 1 month before they plan to re-open it. Not too bad, I just hope it's open whenever I go. Which will probably be about a month.

Gouldy - you wont be that thrilled. Go to CP and ride Dragster. Far smoother and with lap bars, you cant go wrong. Plus I heard that Dragster was up and running pretty smoothly this weekend with the exception of in the morning. However, I believe that maybe that had something to do with the KK incident because it was running but just without people.

With Intamins record, I wouldnt doubt if they gave CP and ring and told them to do some checks on the catch car.

In case you guys didn't know yet, there weren't any people on the train.

yea we know, just wondering about the details, i hope its back up by the time el toro opens