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Accident At Dreamworld Australia!

Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

The media reports have been all over the place, trying to confirm "facts" that they obviously do not have. Our own trusty Sun and Mirror are calling it a rollercoaster.

The park have now confirmed three deaths and another critically injured. Very sad news.

Edit: From a picture posted on Sky, it looks like a raft managed to get its tyre on top of the tyre of the raft going up before it, so when it started to go up the lift, its centre of gravity was shifted too far down the slope and it tipped upside down. The Sky picture has the second raft tied up vertically at the top of the lift so that they could gain access to the poor people in the raft. The preceding raft is still there, and right up against the underside of the raft that flipped.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

I'm watching live coverage now and they have just said that the police have confirmed that 4 people have died! How sad! :(


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Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

It has happened at the top of the lift where the belt goes downhill a bit into the station.

Looks like belt forced the raft against another so it "rode" upwards till eventually it was steep enough and against the end roller that it got caught back on it and pulled underwater.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Gazza said:
It has happened at the top of the lift where the belt goes downhill a bit into the station.

Looks like belt forced the raft against another so it "rode" upwards till eventually it was steep enough and against the end roller that it got caught back on it and pulled underwater.

So sad, if I ever sensed danger on a water ride I would be jumping ship!


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Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Very sad news - condolences to all victims and families involved as well as to all emergency teams on site.

Not a ride type or manufacturer were I would have thought such a thing is possible. Hopefully the reason is found out and the conveyor lifts modified to prevent such a thing in the future. After seeing the news TV footage I assume every park should have a person monitoring the lift with an emergency stop device inside his hand. I also assume as most seasonal parks have or will shut down shortly for the winter that Intamin rapids will be off for the rest of the season.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Awful - but hard to see why it was e-stopped as soon as something starts to go wrong.

Queensland Ambulance spokesman Gavin Fuller said that two people had been thrown from the ride and two had been trapped inside.

In a statement, police said they had been called to the scene following reports that several people had been injured by a conveyor belt.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37759162

Rapids rides around the world being suddenly shut down no doubt, just like the way everyone stops driving cars after even road traffic accident.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

After seeing some close-up pictures - working at a media company - I wonder if the use of restraints have worsened the outcome of this accident. The two trapped likely unable to quickly jump out or while panicking unable to open the seatbelts...
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Very sad news, it's so rare that these types of incidents happen. Usually rapids have a holding piece stopping boasts from getting too close on the lifts, I'm assuming this doesn't have one of those?
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!





Truly shocking. How does this even happen? No cover on the conveyor belt too would have been terrifying to see.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

This is terrible.

If that belt has an E-stop which I'm assuming it will have. How was the belt allowed to operate long enough for this to happen without it being stopped. I'm guessing it will have taken quite a while for the boat to get to tipping point.

And why was the other raft stopped/stuck in the station?
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Those slats on the conveyor are rather widely-spaced - not seen a gap that big before. If there was any tipping backwards of the raft due to the raft in front getting stuck, for example, then the rear part of the tyre could have got wedged between the slats, making the flipping-over a fairly quick process. Reports are using the word "ejected", which implies a certain level of force/speed.

It must have happened very quickly - e-stop buttons are usually very close to where they might be needed.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Awful.

The chance of a boat getting trapped and tipping must be millions to one. I agree that those slats look too far apart. It's also one of the most controlled and slowest part of the ride. It really is awful.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

spicy said:
Wondered how long it would be until UK media bought up the Smiler in their articles relating to this. Not long then.

The Mirror also reporting it as a rollercoaster crash :roll:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... es-9118891

The Mirror are showing pictures of the Buzzsaw rollercoaster with the following:

The incident took place at the Thunder River Rapids attraction - a circular, log flume-stye rollercoaster.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

^Weirdly the BBC were showing footage of that coaster too this morning, maybe that's all the stock footage they could get their hands on? Still doesn't excuse the terrible reporting though by the Mirror.

Such a terrible accident, I imagine those belts stopped them from evacuating the boat quickly? Urgh, such a horrible situation.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

Bloody hell, I couldn't believe what I was reading. 4 lives cut tragically cut short, definitely one of the worst amusement park accidents ever. RIP. And the assholes at the Mirror will genuinely be happy about this and it will have made their day as they can use it to further their "all theme parks are unsafe" agenda.
 
Re: ACCIDENT At Dreamworld Australia!

This video makes it look these rapids had a relatively unusual way of loading, at least compared to the others made by Intamin. It sort of looks like the boats were supposed to stack on the top of the lift, before the passengers could disembark...

[youtubevid]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umyXZkbhC2A[/youtubevid]

Edited to embed video. - ECG
 
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