Roller coaster 'Cobra' crashes at Tivoli Friheden

Tivoli recently opened a new inverted coaster called Cobra, it was the first ride of the Italian manufacturer Ride Tek.

POV: http://youtube.com/watch?v=__U515Vdffg

A statement from someone at TPR:

This evening (Friday) there was a serious accident at Tivoli Friheden. as the first car of the new coaster "Cobra" broke of. I was at Friheden, waiting in line to Tyfonen, at the time and I'm an eyewitness to the accident. I was standing on the side that is closest to the first Inversion of Cobra (about 20 meters away) and I claim that I had the best view of the accident.
The thing that happened was that the train stalled on the first inversion, while the train stopped for a moment at the top the inversion the first care broke of the train with 2 passengers and fell down to the ground (the accident didn't happen from the tallest point of 25 meters, as the TV2 News says at the moment).
The car lands on it's back and I can delightfully see persons move. The rest of the train goes back and forth (as a pendulum). A couple of workers jump down to take care of it. TV2 News says that there was 4 wounded and no casualties. I guess that they are talking about the 2 in the first car and the 2 in the second car, that might have been hit by the first car. After the accident I left the park so I wouldn't be in the way for the many ambulance's, etc.

I would guess, by what I saw; that the train construction wasn't strong enough to hold for a roll-back in that inversion, but I can't confirm anything. I have also heard people talk about that the coaster have been closed, just before, due to technical problems.

The accident happened at 22:52 by my cell phone.

I felt a bit scared to actually see such a serious accident on a roller coaster, it was almost surreal! Especially since I rode it 45 minutes earlier.

I really think that Friheden will loose a lot of visitors due to this.

It appears from later statements the train fell out of one of the loops, 4 people were injured and were taken to a hospital.

Any news article links?

http://stiften.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/forside?profile=1002

A Danish one.

This is how the train is looking at the moment:

http://mjimg.no.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi ... rder=0.jpg

Wow that is amazing how those two people lived after falling off the coaster!

[Coasterkidmwm]

Typical Italian trash.

[gouldy]

Look at the state of the thing, it looks like it was built by a coaster company WORSE than Togo!

i would love to see a video of the actual thing happening, it's just a shame that no one had their video camera out or something and catch it on video, because normally someone would manage to, it's just lucky that there was no queue line running underneath the coaster, i'm glad that everyone survived.

I think its a shame. Looking on the company's website, they have some interesting ideas, but you can't play with lives...

How could this happen...it just opened on june 27th

[hyyyper]

This may look bad for the company but I honestly don't think it's their mistake.
When the accident happened the ride was open to public for over a week. So that means that it passed all the tests the safety-inspection threw at them.
Accidents like this are usually the fault of lack of maintenance, that this accident happened on the first coaster of a company might look suspicious, but I'm not convinced that it's the result of improper engineering. Today's amusement safety laws are way to strict for construction or design flaws.

^Agreed^

True, I'm thinking the maintenance guys were not used to these sort of rides, and maybe screwed with some boults or something.

I don't think lack of proper maintenance after less than a month of operating would result in a actually falling off of the track.

If this happened a year from now, then sure I would believe that. There is obviously some sort of flaw or oversight that resulted in the car falling off the track and detatching from the rest of the train.

Also, just because something is inspected and passed, doesn't mean that bolts, welds, connections etc etc won't fail down the road.

Well, I meant that a maintenance guy maybe loosened some wrong things because of lack of experience.

But then again, when a train stalls on a invert, there are some heavy forces on the train. That can cause it to break apart, but I assume the strenght of those parts would be tested for a situation like this?

I agree with Canadmos. Seriously, if it only opened a week ago, it has to be something more than lack of maintenance! No ride, even without any maintenance at all should fall apart that disastrously within a week of opening.

[jayman]

yup, it's not really a good idea to make a ride that passes tests and then falls off the track when people are on it..

you got a point ^ but still it is wierd how things went horrifically wrong so quickly!

I think that it is not the company's fault, they seem to be on the ball with their designs and testing etc, i think this could be a case of perhaps overlooked metal fatigue by the park perhaps? I love some of that companies designs, that Thor's hammer launcher looks great, instead of having a straight launch like on intamin's, why not fling it with a counterweight!

Metal fatigue? After 1 week? Nah, this is a good example of an Engineering or Construction flaw.

it could happen, like a staple, or a paperclip, you keep twisting it, it will give and snap, i think that the coaster was designed to withstand all the Gs put on it, but an error in manufacturing caused it to not able to for long, i'm just glad it happened at very much a standstill instead of when it was going 40mph and damaging cars behind and injuring people in the cars behind.

i think that the coaster was designed to withstand all the Gs put on it, but an error in manufacturing caused it to not able to for long

Surely thats still the fault of the manufacturer then?! If you say its an error in manufacturing, surely you are then saying it was already like that before the maintenance men got their hands on it? And do you have proof of them being "on the ball with their testing" or anything?

To be fair, when anything like this happens, more than usual it is the fault of the park and their maintenance, but that is normally after a hell of a long time, when the ride has aged and become way more unreliable. But after a week, this should really not be happening. The maintenance men will have barely got their hands on it enough to break it this disastrously in a week.

wow... scary! [:O]

I'm all getting confused here, i meant the company designed it to withsatnd the Gs, but there was an error in [physically making it[/u] perhaps, i could still be wrong and it could simply be the parks fault, or bad design. you know it could be lotsa things, i'm not gonna set myself in adamant that that is what it is. I'm just happy no one died, does everyone agree with me on that?

http://www.ridetek.it/en/


thats there site and this is there first full on coaster but they have actually made some pretty nice kiddy coasters around too with no problems.
the coaster does look well designed and strong however i would have to say this is down to the maintanence checks.if a part just broken off that means somthing had been cracked for as while, or loose for a while. nothing just happens suddenly like this its been going to happen for a while. i would like to know where it broke from?, what i mean by this was it broken from the trolly (bit where all the wheels are), from the arm where the seats are supported or just the whole thing off the track befor making any judgement on wether it was a manufactoring fault or construction or maintanence.

[gouldy]

Gaz, the thing is, the ride hasn?????????t been open ?????????for a while?????????, it had only been open for a week, I don't think poor maintenance of parts comes into it, unless it is that something was simply not bolted in correctly. But poor maintenance would not cause a part that had been correctly designed to fail in such a way after just a week.

I can understand why a lot of you are feeling sympathetic towards this new company, but????????? there's no one else in the equation, it surely must be their design or manufacturing fault, it has to go down to inexperience in my opinion.