Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Accident at Gröna Lund - Jetline permanently closed update page 6

davidm

davidm

Strata Poster
News coming out of Jetline derailing :(

www.expressen.se

Dödsolycka på Gröna Lund: ”Flera personer har fallit ur vagnen”

En allvarlig olycka har inträffat i berg- och dalbanan Jetline på Gröna Lund i Stockholm. En kvinna i 35-årsåldern är död och polisen har inlett en brottsutredning om vållande till annans död. Alla som satt i berg- och dalbanan har evakuerats och insatsen är avslutad – nu håller nöjesparken...
www.expressen.se www.expressen.se

Pic snipped from that ^ story

1687690435073.png

Story is saying derailed, people fell out (!!). One dead.

Discussion on reddit too ;
https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoasters/comments/14iigit
 
This is just awful and tragic. Really hope there weren’t more casualties.

Edit: Apparently the entire car fell out. This is Quimera all over again.
 
Last edited:
Dreadful. Thoughts and prayers.

I watched the video in one of the reports, looks like the train is still on the track, or has one car been thrown from the track? Or has it derailed and throw the riders out? I saw an image of a wheel assembly on the ground.
 
Ian said:
I watched the video in one of the reports, looks like the train is still on the track, or has one car been thrown from the track? Or has it derailed and throw the riders out? I saw an image of a wheel assembly on the ground.
Click to expand...
It appears that the wheel assembly fell off the lead car, but the train is still more or less on the track, so I assume that the seriously injured (and sadly the victim as well) fell out of the train.

FB_IMG_1687703271199.jpg
 
Absolutely terrifying, I imagine a catastrophic failure of the entire wheel assembly would be pretty hard to detect and mitigate against. Just a breakdown in the material over time due to repeated stress. I can’t help but feel this will mark a significant turning point in the utilisation of these original schwarzkopf trains on other coasters, given Grona’s history, owner and prominence in the industry I cannot see this incident occurring due to lack of maintenance / negligence. I’d be very shocked to find out that stress testing wasn’t a key element of the coasters maintenance given its age.

Having spoken to Swedish friends long before this accident the opinion of Jetline is often that it’s old and ‘dangerous’. I struggle to see this coaster surviving.
 
Last edited:
Woke up to this news, just awful. Must've been horrifying with this going on in the middle of the park.
 
Well....If what Chris said is true then it looks like Lisebergbanan may be the only one of the Zierer Schwarzkopf designs left before too long. Isn't there a near clone of this with a loop out there though?
 
Given this keeps happening to Schwarzkopf trains, I think it's safe to say there is a major issue with the design of how the wheel assembly is attached. This is what happened on Mindbender... And more recently Magnum Force whilst it was in Mexico, before being moved to Indiana - right? I always assumed the wheel assembly failed in part on those, but then a friend told me nope - it came clean off in the same way as this.

I cannot believe that guy fell and managed to catch himself on the support and right himself. It seems too wild even though I've read eyewitness reports - though the translation described it as "tumbled"...

I'm starting to think the car probably hung lopsided and that they tumbled out, trying to grab onto the train, track and supports as they did so, rather than being ejected like we instinctively imagine. Once they fell, the car righted itself. And that one guy was just lucky. The photo of him implies to me he then scooted away from the train.

Like there is just no way they all got ejected and he landed there and is ok... It's too insane.

Awful incident and completely unacceptable that it people keep dying from essentially the same issue? Someone correct me if I'm wrong there.
 
These types of accidents are always the most shocking for me because they seemingly happen out of nowhere.

I would assume that Grona Lund are a very competent park when it comes to the safety measures and checks they have in place. But the fact we've now had multiple similar incidents on these old Schwarzkopf loopers definitely raises several questions.

Nobody wants their safety to be in jeopardy when visiting a park, so I now wonder how Grona Lund respond. Does this now warrant an industry wide assessment of Schwarzkopf coasters?
 
Many questions raised given the similarity to other incidents.

But right now, of course, the thoughts go not just to the victim, those injured and their families, but also those on the train, those who witnessed the event and the staff who were working on the ride in some capacity. Even if the staff followed every single one of their safety rules, and have done nothing wrong, I can imagine they have a very heavy feeling in their stomachs right now.
 
I knew about the mindbender incident and looked into it extensively a number of years ago. So to see another schwarzkopf ride fail, causing a fatality in the same way with the wheel assembly is concerning. And I didn't even know about the 2019 incident on another similar ride.

Something that comes up a lot particularly with mindbender is the German workshop literature which was difficult to interpret and the subsequent company liquidation it suffers from the arrow dynamics issue that original parts are not available.

Without knowing the exact cause it does appear that the same issue as mindbender has happened in that some very crucial bolts in the wheel assembly have come loose. Said bolts are said to be impossible to check on that particular schwarzkopf train without major strip down. I assumed modifications were made after the mindbender incident.

See what comes of this one, it's incredibly sad that a life has been lost. It's something we all dread.
 
Interesting to read on RCDB that the ride was modified in 1997 to have a taller and longer and steeper drop.

Many questions to ask and answer here - but these incidents should bring into question the ongoing use of some older ride-type designs and materials. An older coaster may continue to run absolutely fine… until it tragically doesn’t :/

Edit: the drop was not modified to make it taller, corrected below.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely tragic. I agree @Sandman that this will surely mean many parks with Schwarzkopfs will reassess their rides, particularly due to the nature of these incidents - something that apparently can't be anticipated and checked. Surely this also throws a spanner into the works regarding the opening of the Schwarzkopf at Indiana Beach?
 
Lisebergbanan got new trains from Zerier a few years back. Perhaps, if they decide to keep Jetline, they should look into doing that as well?
 
Such a shame to hear about this today, so awful and sad. I will add a few of my 2 cents to what has already been said.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Jetline seems to be one of the few original trained-schwarzkopfs (of this type so discounting the jetstars) that haven't had a big refurbishment/overhaul/new trains. As mentioned above Lisebergbanan had a big train overhaul (but you wouldn't notice if you didn't know because they're pretty much identical), Nessie had a similar overhaul, Alpina Bahn has got new gerst trains, Sooperdooperlooper has new gerst trains, Revolution has new trains, as does Riddler Mindbender etc etc, you get the picture. If not they're getting new trains old schwarzkopf trains can get manufacturer overhauls with stress testing and in-depth refurbishment. As Chris has mentioned, I'd be really interested to see if they've been stress-testing/checking for cracks with x-rays or whatever it is they use with Jetline. You'd think so, given it's age, but I'm not sure whether it's required in all countries or what the regulations are. I saw a comment somewhere saying it wasn't require in Sweden but this is completely un-supported by any evidence.

The wheel assemblies and their attachment points are going to be high stress points on any coaster so it makes sense that if anything were to fail it would be these after 35 years of high forces, especially if there's been no refurbishment, proper testing or whatever. Every ride will have high stress points. For example, I know Top Spins and Top Scans have areas where they have to be thoroughly checked for fatigue because of localised high stress. It depends on the nature of each ride exactly where these areas will be. Even the best engineered things have a shelf life and will fail at a certain point if they're put under high pressure for long enough. These coasters are old now and have strong forces so need significant TLC to keep them running.

The two earlier incidents both involved people not reading the maintenance manuals correctly. Mindbender was a translation issue and Quimera was, I believe, a total lack of manual, coupled with them running the coaster faster than it was designed to run (it was running with the mid-course break-run turned off). So, I agree it is surprising to see this kind of incident at a park like Grona. It you want to run one of these classic coasters these days you need to be spending the money on getting new trains or majorly refurbishing and overhauling the ones you have with new parts etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top