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Death at Freizeitpark Klotten

Very sad, but I'll be interested to hear more details, assuming they are released. As I said in the recent Danish accident thread, the last few years really haven't been good for accidents, it's quite shocking really.
 
From what I can gather from reading reports in poorly-translated English, the lady fell during the straight bunny hops that are located about two third's of the way through the layout, and died at the scene after resuscitation efforts failed. She could have fallen up to 8 metres to the ground. I believe it also says an investigation will begin tomorrow, Monday 8th.

The article: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/koblenz/toedlicher-sturz-achterbahn-klotten-100.html

Doesn't sound like a terribly high fall, however I suppose if you're travelling at speed and unable to position yourself as best as possible, the worse can easily occur. For anybody interested who may not be familiar with this coaster, here is a photo of roughly where she fell. Heiße Fahrt was one of the first five Gerst Bobsleds built.

aabnada
 
I rode this coaster in 2020 and the bunny hops were really forceful. But due to it only going straight there I can't imagine how or why she would have fallen out. According to a Bild report an eyewitness claimed he and his daughter were on a previous ride and that their restraints weren't controlled. As bad as this tragedy is, I just hope that this won't start any unnecessary discussion about ride safety here in Germany.
 
I think I remember it like that and in another rollercoaster board a User confirmed that they don't manually check the restraints. Most likely it's not required to do so. Anyway we should not start speculating about an accident here. That's the job of god awful tabloids like Bild. I'll wait for something official and I hope that our pretty safe hobby doesn't get any damages from this accident.
 
UP87 said:
I think I remember it like that and in another rollercoaster board a User confirmed that they don't manually check the restraints. Most likely it's not required to do so. Anyway we should not start speculating about an accident here. That's the job of god awful tabloids like Bild. I'll wait for something official and I hope that our pretty safe hobby doesn't get any damages from this accident.
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My foggy memory is that they don't check restraints manually on G'sengte Sau either. Is it a Germany thing? Perhaps no longer...
 
Hixee said:
My foggy memory is that they don't check restraints manually on G'sengte Sau either. Is it a Germany thing? Perhaps no longer...
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From memory I haven’t seen them do it on Van Helsing’s Factory or Tiki-Waka either (going to confirm on the latter a week from now), so it could be that on these Gerstlauer Bobsleds it’s generally assumed the bar is low enough to be safe. It’s definitely not a Germany thing given the multiple times I’ve been stapled on Kärnan and Colossos, though.
 
cookie said:
From memory I haven’t seen them do it on Van Helsing’s Factory or Tiki-Waka either (going to confirm on the latter a week from now), so it could be that on these Gerstlauer Bobsleds it’s generally assumed the bar is low enough to be safe. It’s definitely not a Germany thing given the multiple times I’ve been stapled on Kärnan and Colossos, though.
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Perhaps I should have been more specific - "Is it a Germany thing on these Gerst bobs?? Perhaps no longer..."
 
German ZDF Television Station says that the accident happened in a turn when the woman started to slip and later fell out of the train. I guess news outlets just start to reporting what they can report before a thorough investigation. The accident is talk of the day these days.
 
On many rides in Germany there is only a visual checks plus Schwarzkopf and Gerstlauer have red/green lights on the cars to indicate if the bar is lowered enough to be considered save. At Hansa-Park Nessie the attendant only closes the lapbar if you leave it open - otherwise he/she only checks visually. At Olympia Looping the attendants only push down the shoulder restraint if you already closed the lapbar. At Nessie all lapbars must be closed for dispatch - Olympia and Alpina can run with lapbars open, likely to speed up station operations - on Olympia only all shoulder restraints must be closed.

All this proved enough for many years. Of course this can lead to problems if riders do not push the lapbar tight - as is mostly instructed by signs - for commforts sake...
 
Todays update:
  • crime scene investigators from the police don't see any "first sight evidence" to support negligence or criminal behaviour
  • A post-mortem has been ordered
  • The manufacturer is on-site to aid the investigation
  • Additinally an independent specialist will conduct an investigation not aided by the manufacturer
  • Park will remain closed until further notice
 
cookie said:
From memory I haven’t seen them do it on Van Helsing’s Factory or Tiki-Waka either (going to confirm on the latter a week from now), so it could be that on these Gerstlauer Bobsleds it’s generally assumed the bar is low enough to be safe. It’s definitely not a Germany thing given the multiple times I’ve been stapled on Kärnan and Colossos, though.
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Just got off Tiki-Waka and can confirm they only push the bar as far down as they start hearing a click. There was still a large gap between the bar and me so I had to pull it the rest of the way down myself.
 
UP87 said:
As far as I remember they always checked the lap bars there.
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They did for us. I've only ever experienced no physical bar checks once, and it was on a spinning mouse, the same one that told me off for putting the seat belt on too, as they're 'not necessary.'
 
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