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Accident at Alton Towers

That is terrible news. Although I'm always the first to say how safe rollercoasters are and how rare incidents like this are, this is life changing injury which will damage the reputation of both Alton Towers and Gerstlauer. I hope Alton Towers offer Leah Washington substantial damages and the best private medial care and attention available. Thoughts to the poor girl.

Alton cannot reopen Smiler in it's current dark-physcological theme. I still don't think they'll scrap it but certainly have to make it less sensitive. I go back on my previous post. I think that the UK Merlin parks are in for a terrible year, which is nothing compare to what Leah will endure.
 
Truly horrendous outcome for the girl.

20mph speed of collision? I'd like to see what the HSE inspectors put the collision speed at.

I'm not syaing I ever thought these trains looked like an accident waiting to happen, but their design has always struck me as truly awful. An almost afterthought.
 
I don't agree with The Smiler bring rebranded. It doesn't touch on anything relevant to this incident, although I do think that opening will take some time even when the ride has had the all-clear to open again.

Texas Giant didn't reopen with a new brand and that killed someone.
 
Worst news that could have ever come from this. So disappointing, hopefully she's mentally strong enough to get through it, receives huge support and gets a massive compensation
 
I agree about the trains, I never understood why they are so flat up front, it leaves no room when things like this happen. I'm just glad they weren't lap bar restraints.
 
But then we can take B&M Floorless trains and rip those apart for having no protection at all. I'm assuming Gerstlauer has designed the trains with specific crumple zones and acted in a way that was in accordance to health and safety requirements. The shallow depth of the leg bays must have complied and indeed passed TUV (or other boards) certification. Nothing wrong with the trains, however I'd assume that these would be looked into to see how Gerstlauer can up their safety.
 
It's really terrible news to hear she's suffered as badly as this - hopefully she'll have a steady recovery. Fingers crossed the remaining injuries aren't as bad.

Screaming Coasters said:
But then we can take B&M Floorless trains and rip those apart for having no protection at all. I'm assuming Gerstlauer has designed the trains with specific crumple zones and acted in a way that was in accordance to health and safety requirements. The shallow depth of the leg bays must have complied and indeed passed TUV (or other boards) certification. Nothing wrong with the trains, however I'd assume that these would be looked into to see how Gerstlauer can up their safety.
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But I question why they'd want to see this tested at high speed? Coaster trains aren't supposed to see any impacts like this, the testing and certification of the control system should cover that. Obviously there's bumping of the trains in the stations/storage, but I'm willing to be this isn't an eventuality that they would have tested for.

You can see on these pictures, there's nothing that would act as a crumple zone on either the front or the back of the trains. As you'll know, the buffer isn't there for high speed impacts. The two chassis' would have just come straight into contact with each other - presumably with a pretty jarring jolt.
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However bad this is, I don't think we'll see coasters getting proper crumple zones.
 
Pretty awful news both for the girl and for Alton. Hope she makes a swift recovery now the decision to amputate has been taken. Lets hope Alton and other parks learn from this and make sure it never happens again.
 
Screaming Coasters said:
I don't agree with The Smiler bring rebranded. It doesn't touch on anything relevant to this incident, although I do think that opening will take some time even when the ride has had the all-clear to open again.

Texas Giant didn't reopen with a new brand and that killed someone.
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The whole ride is about being corrected and has a dark psychological theme, where riders exit in a different state of mind after entering. The theme is no longer appropriate.

If they did rebrand, Alton would be accused of trying to brush the whole incident under the carpet. I reckon it'll be SBNO for a while now. Scraping it might be the only option. People won't forget this in hurry, especially if there is a court case and continued publicity.

If I were in charge, the ride would be removed.
 
I agree - I think the ride should be removed. Cut their losses and look into a replacement in the long term.

I do wonder. Are coaster trains / chassis crash tested?
 
I reckon theres about a 75% chance of it being scrapped and a 25% chance of it staying and being rebranded. We'll wait and see. Britain won't forget this incident for a very long time, we are a small country and Alton Towers is possibly the most well known theme park in the UK. If it wasn't it sure is now.
 
Health & Safety Executive will prosecute Merlin under Section 3 of the Health & Safety at Work Act for sure. They will probably throw in something under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regs for extra measure. Higher fines and penalties.

I doubt they will go after a single person, (the ride operator if it was human error). If it were found that Merlin as a body corporate allowed the ride to operate knowing that a failure like this was possible, section 37 of the H&S At Work act.

Unlikely that any of the injured persons will pursue criminal action, the HSE will deal with that. Most likely they'll go down the civil courts route, waiting for the guilty verdict (can't see it being anything but) against Merlin before settling any final compensation claims.

Absolutely horrific accident and the injuries received are shocking. The design of the train needs to be taken into account. There is always a possibility of two rollercoaster trains colliding, no matter how many electronic and human controls there are in place. Merlin may take the view that Gerstlauer failed to provide safe trains in the event of a collision and go for them. Certainly if the design of the front of the trains has had any impact on the injuries received they do have some liability to pass on.
 
Such a tragic situation. I hope she can move forward in her life.
Interested to see how Merlin move on from this. I grew to like The Smiler theming, but it clearly needs to be scrapped. The coaster can stay SBNO until AT can assess how damaging the ride is in the long run.
 
I just can't see scrapping happening.. I mean, as much as this is a horrific case, its still 18 million pound investment to think of. I reckon a recovery plan rather than a drastic plan.
 
Especially now that all it's faults and failings are crawling out of the woodwork, people are definitely going to be put off. But there have been worse incidents on other rides which have survived and either be rebranded or had different trains/restraints etc put on. I can see both sides of the argument, for and against taking it down. I think even if it is removed the GP will be wary of Alton for a while. I don't think I could call what Alton's decision will be.

For me, I agree with Ian, although I personally would go back on it, I think that poor girls injuries will be in the back of people's minds for a long time, rebranded or and no it.
 
Mindbender at Edmonton Mall went completely tits up in 1986 and ended up killing most of its riders and yet it reopened after 7 months with redesigned trains. That ride is as popular as ever.. Maybe Smiler will follow a similar rout?

This it talking from a business perspective, not an emotional one.
 
I think you overestimate the memory of the GP and what they are willing to forgive. This was an awful accident in which there were 0 fatalities. Rides have reopened under much worse circumstances. I doubt there will even be a re-brand.

Smiler will be open for the 2016 season in my opinion.
 
I think the reopening of The Smiler rests upon how much at fault Gerstlauer is. If Alton can get all of, or even close to their money back, it'll come down. If there's no money in it for them, they'll try all they can to protect their investment. It's horrible for this to be the case, but for companies that big it's money that talks and they'll already be hurting from the £100m+ in company value that disappeared overnight on the stock market.

This is absolutely horrible for the victims though. My deepest sympathies. We will have to wait and see who is at fault, manufacturer or operator. This investigation could take up to a couple of years; you'd hope out of respect that the coaster remains closed until then at least.
 
Actually, now that I think about it.. Who manufactures Gerstlauer PLC's / control panels? Is it Consign AG, or is it in-house? If its a 3rd party PLC, Gerstlauer might even shift the blame to them. I'm not familiar with their setup at all, but just throwing that spanner into the works.
 
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