Merlin found at fault for Smiler accident

The Smiler at Alton Tower had an accident this afternoon media reports
An Air Ambulance has been called and four guests have been seriously injured
Alton Towers hasn't confirmd these reports yet

update: Here's a video of the train coming to a rest after it collided:



here is what a news site said :

Alton Towers have just released a statement: ???There has been an incident on The Smiler this afternoon involving two carriages coming together on a low section of the track. One of the carriages was empty and the other had 16 guests in.???

???The Resort???s fully qualified First Responders were on the scene immediately to assist with the evacuation which is ongoing.???

Current speculation suggests that the empty car stalled, and the second car was not stopped in time. Others attribute the incident to human error ??? citing failsafes that should prevent such incidents

( source :
http://airgates.co.uk/2015/06/02/breaking-smiler-carriages-crash-leaving-serious-injuries/
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32980354 )

Two trains have collided with each other at around 2:09pm today affecting 16 people with four receiving serious injuries
One of the trains was stationary and empty (I'm assuming it stalled) and the other moving, full with 16 riders onboard.

Full, more detailed report here http://news.sky.com/story/1494944/carri ... miler-ride

This is a horrific accident and the cause is currently unknown. I wish the best for everybody involved and hope this will lead to new safety measures to prevent it from happening again.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Well the computer is SUPPOSED to prevent this kind of thing from happening...

That's what's confusing. Apparently the Senior Mechanic over-rid the safety systems as it was having issues, so it may not be the computers fault at all

That's all pretty crazy. Hope the people pull through, guessing it was the 4 front row passengers since they would've taken the brunt of the force. It's an impressive ride, but I feel like after so many problems Alton is probably regretting that choice. Wonder what will happen from here. I also wonder if someone got a video...with a train stopped someone might have started filming considering everyone has a smart phone nowadays. Could be a very scary video, and one that might be damaging to the theme park industry as a whole. Even if worse car accidents happen all the time, people don't treat park accidents the same, and I'm sure they won't with a high profile ride and accident of this magnitude.

How did the first train stall, and why was it empty? Do they run empty trains every now and then or what? Secondly why didn't the second train stop as the first one didn't reach the block break? The computer should've stopped the ride. Could it have been human error?

I think it's weird they didn't shut the ride down for the day to test it and make sure everything was safe when it obviously had suffered technical difficulties earlier that day.

Apparently the four people in the front row suffered serious leg injuries. Which can be understood when you look at the pictures you can see the sides of the front row has been bent in and the left side piece has fallen off.

[mkingy]

It was after a breakdown - which was why there was an empty train. Smiler has trouble with that element as it is - take into account its really windy over here and makes stalling a definite possibility. The train was halted at the top of the second lift hill (block section before) but then continued over the crest. It's pretty common practice to send the trains round once and if they make it back fine to open the ride... although obviously the final train didn't make it round.

Sad day for all involved and I really hope the passengers pull through.

As Archy said in skype - we shouldn't make assumptions or accusations until the report of the investigation is completed. I'd hate for someone (ie Senior Mechanic) to be implicated without any proof of the cause of accident.

Yea, I don't want to skip to any conclusions before somebody knows for definite. Interesting theories though

[gouldy]

What our News Channels look like at the moment...

These sentences gave me the shock... 1. Seriously injured. 2. People knocked out. 3. Blood everywhere. I hope this doesn't sound like an extremely shocking accident at WEW.

I'm really surprised by this. Not only did the coaster valley, which is a rare occurrence in the grand scheme of coaster incidents, they somehow sent a train so close behind it that there was no stopping it. Maybe they didn't send two empty trains for cycles after a breakdown like at most parks I've visited. At least nobody (as far as we know) was killed. Someone in one of those news articles was likening it to a car crash. An auto accident that would get as much media attention as this is about to get would have to be far worse in magnitude and casualties. It'll be blown out of proportion for sure. Though it is a pretty significant incident to begin with.

[mkingy]

Smiler was originally prone to stalling at that point of the track - when it opened it had all sorts of trouble and if you Google images Alton towers you can actually see then removing the cars from 2 years ago!

well, they should just call it thew frowner instead of the smiler at this point

It does sound like a major incident, but I think it will also be blown out of proportion. Very surprising that all of the factors just happened to occur to make the accident possible, and people will definitely use this incident as an example when they want to prove that "rollercoasters are unsafe". (Even though the chances of this happening were pretty slim). This incident will have a bad reflection on Alton Towers for sure

On a lighter note... 8 cars instead of 4 isn't a bad look for that ride...

rtrudy wrote:

On a lighter note... 8 cars instead of 4 isn't a bad look for that ride...

Omg, you did not just -.-

[Metazoanhaddock]

rtrudy wrote:

On a lighter note... 8 cars instead of 4 isn't a bad look for that ride...

Reading the facebook comments on AT's page is a gold mine for "Things that the GP say" material

Here's an example
"Absolute death trap - the empty carriage had lost momentum which is a clear design fault."

Calling it.

Alton Towers will not be reopening this ride. At the end of the season, the Smiler will be removed from the park.

[Paradox]

Bouncypip11 wrote:

Reading the facebook comments on AT's page is a gold mine for "Things that the GP say" material

Here's an example
"Absolute death trap - the empty carriage had lost momentum which is a clear design fault."

This is why I absolutely despise accidents in the industry. People blow it out of proportion and are too ignorant to realize that driving a car is more dangerous than this.

I hate the logic of "It can kill you, let's ban it." I always use the same point that you can choke on food and die so why don't you ban food as well?

^
Exactly.

[mkingy]

rcking04 wrote:

Calling it.

Alton Towers will not be reopening this ride. At the end of the season, the Smiler will be removed from the park.

More likely to be SBNO - if you consider how much it'd cost to remove something like that. I also don't think the UK public will have quite that much of a knee jerk reaction - I've seen a lot of 'positive' comments alongside the 'negative' ones.

Realism 6/10

Massive pump near the end of the ride and it doesn't pass the block test.

mkingy wrote:

rcking04 wrote:

Calling it.

Alton Towers will not be reopening this ride. At the end of the season, the Smiler will be removed from the park.

More likely to be SBNO - if you consider how much it'd cost to remove something like that. I also don't think the UK public will have quite that much of a knee jerk reaction - I've seen a lot of 'positive' comments alongside the 'negative' ones.

This is among the most serious of issues this ride has had.

The trains stalling.
The track pieces breaking apart to reveal gaps between them.
This major accident due to a failure in a computer system that will result in a multitude of lawsuits and settlements, and during which the ride will most likely not be allowed to operate at all while under investigation and pending court cases.

It just seems like this is an example of a project too ambitious to be viable...

This ride just might end up along the lines of Windjammer Surf Racers.

dj-dj wrote:

Realism 6/10

Massive pump near the end of the ride and it doesn't pass the block test.

Haha, omg.

I doubt the coaster will be closed forever. As if they would actually waste all of that money just like that. If they rehire gerstlauer to do a makeover with new improved safety features, I don't see why they couldn't reopen it.

Literally 8 injuries out of how many riders since it's opening? What, like >2 million riders?