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Quimera accident at La Feria Chapultepec Magico

SilverArrow

SilverArrow

Certified Ride Geek
Rumours are two people have died and two more injured in a serious accident in Mexico on Quimera (formerly Magnum Force) at La Feria Chapultepec.

UPDATED INFO: Videos have surfaced online showing that the back car came off the track and then fishtailed along behind the rest of the train, before coming completely off the track and throwing riders out. Photos show that that the wheel assembly of the last car has completely come off (there is one per car except on the front car). The park is said to remain closed for around two weeks whilst an investigation takes place.

This sounds strikingly similar to the Mindbender accident on a very similar coaster in 1986 where a wheel axel sheared off on the final car (due to lack of maintenance caused by translation issues) which caused the last car to come off the track, fishtail along until it pulled the train to a stop in a loop and hit a supporting pillar which then caused the restraints to open and passengers to be ejected.

Here is the video that shows the fishtailing of the last carriage.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1178050616326799361

A press video showing where the train came to a stop, minus the final car and witness info (in spanish).
https://twitter.com/x/status/1178056496917164032

Really shocked and saddened to hear this. Thoughts go out to those involved, really sad story.

Note: Please can we keep anything graphic off the forum out of respect for the people involved.
 
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www.milenio.com

Feria de Chapultepec: accidente en juego Quimera deja dos muertos

Un carrito del juego 'Kimera' se descarriló y chocó contra un muro, lo que dejó a cinco personas más lesionadas.
www.milenio.com www.milenio.com

This is terrible news, not only that multiple people lost their lives and others were severely injured, but also that Quimera might not operate ever again. Quimera was one of my top bucket-list coasters, being a Schwarzkopf fan myself - but moreso noting Quimera's similarities to one of my top 5 coasters, Mindbender at Galaxyland. Combine those with someone telling me from riding both coasters that Quimera is even more extreme than Mindbender as well as multiple other glowing reviews of it set my expectations super high for this coaster. Even Olympia Looping, as much as I'd love to ride it someday, does not seem as insane and wild as Quimera did. However, I'm sure that this ride's potential closure might be warranted to prevent any further accidents and the like.
 
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I have just watched the Mexican news and, frankly, the news reporter couldn't be worse. It made it look as the roller coaster was 40 years old and that the restraints came undone throwing riders out. You could tell as he was narrating that he has NO idea what he is talking about.

The park was evacuated within minutes and they haven't made it clear whether the ride will reopen with the park or if it will be permanently closed.

This accident is such a shame but the state in which this coaster was being operated was, at least, weird. If you have seen recent videos, the ride has many MCBR sections yet the train literally FLEW through them. Was it run like this at Flamingo Land too? Could this lead to possible excess of fatigue on the car's axles/track?

POV of Quimera:

 
oriolat2 said:
I have just watched the Mexican news and, frankly, the news reporter couldn't be worse. It made it look as the roller coaster was 40 years old and that the restraints came undone throwing riders out. You could tell as he was narrating that he has NO idea what he is talking about.

The park was evacuated within minutes and they haven't made it clear whether the ride will reopen with the park or if it will be permanently closed.

This accident is such a shame but the state in which this coaster was being operated was, at least, weird. If you have seen recent videos, the ride has many MCBR sections yet the train literally FLEW through them. Was it run like this at Flamingo Land too? Could this lead to possible excess of fatigue on the car's axles/track?

POV of Quimera:

Click to expand...
Glad someone who knows Spanish has been able to give more info, thanks.

Looks very very similar to the Mindbender incident to me. Really frustrating if the exact same issue has happened again.
 
oriolat2 said:
I have just watched the Mexican news and, frankly, the news reporter couldn't be worse. It made it look as the roller coaster was 40 years old and that the restraints came undone throwing riders out. You could tell as he was narrating that he has NO idea what he is talking about.

The park was evacuated within minutes and they haven't made it clear whether the ride will reopen with the park or if it will be permanently closed.

This accident is such a shame but the state in which this coaster was being operated was, at least, weird. If you have seen recent videos, the ride has many MCBR sections yet the train literally FLEW through them. Was it run like this at Flamingo Land too? Could this lead to possible excess of fatigue on the car's axles/track?

POV of Quimera:

Click to expand...
There is a David J Ellis POV from Magnum Force.
Even though it seems to speed through those MCBRs more than before and other than the booster lift wheels operating notably faster the coaster itself doesn't seem to be any faster now than it was in 2002. I could be wrong?

I wonder if these are the original trains on that coaster. 35 years old? Perhaps these should have been refurbished or replaced by now? Or it is genuinely bad maintenance of the train. The fact that most of the front cars stayed on fine seems to point into that direction I guess?
 
UKCoasterFan said:
There is a David J Ellis POV from Magnum Force.
Even though it seems to speed through those MCBRs more than before and other than the booster lift wheels operating notably faster the coaster itself doesn't seem to be any faster now than it was in 2002. I could be wrong?

I wonder if these are the original trains on that coaster. 35 years old? Perhaps these should have been refurbished or replaced by now? Or it is genuinely bad maintenance of the train. The fact that most of the front cars stayed on fine seems to point into that direction I guess?
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They are the original trains, Schwarzkopf went bust decades ago so anywhere that runs the classic angular trains (e.g. seen on this and Olympia) are original. I believe SooperDooperlooper (Gerstlauer) and Teststrecke (Sunkid) may be the only old school Schwarzkopfs running newer trains from another manufacturer (edit: and new revolution). The front cars have two wheel axels so are more sturdy, hence why Mindbender only runs trains of front cars since the accident, I believe. They seem to run ok at other parks and Olympia Looping (a very similar ride) seems to be very well maintained by the Barth family (who coincidentally were the first owners of Quimera way back in the 80s) so I am inclined to say it was a maintenance issue, as it was in Canada (maintenance manual translation issue). Obviously I don't know but seems to point to that imo. Of course they do have a shelf life and would require more frequent maintenance as they age though.

Quimera was manufactured before the Mindbender incident (1984 vs 1986) and I know they modified the restraints after the accident on Mindbender but not sure about the extent of modifications post-accident on other similar rides. They might have been happy with confirming that people were maintaining the wheel parts seeing as that was the actual issue. Quimera has changed hands a number of times since then so maybe details were lost in time? Who knows.
 
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I'm not sure how the restraints were in Magnum days, bit with I rode chimaera earlier this year the restraints were the standard Schwartzkopf lap bars and some fabric over the shoulder bits that were about as thick as your standard cheap rucksack and actually came off my shoulders whilst riding. The lap bar alone seemed to be adequate enough though. A lot of the rides did seem to be down for maintenance when I visited though, although chimaera wasn't one of them. There was evidence of maintenance taking place with mechanics on Montana Russa and the wild mouse trains being semi deconstructed.
 
Did it still have the 5-point harnesses from FlamingoLand?

Watching the video of the incident and it's making such a horrible noise that they must have noticed it before?
 
Oh my, this is awful; condolences to all involved.

In all honesty, I think this is a rather surprising incident to occur in this day and age. As many have mentioned, the only other incident of this style I can think of was Mindbender's in 1986; I'd have thought that some form of new safety requirement would have been rolled out to all similar coasters after that incident. I suppose you did also have the entire train that derailed on Tsunami at M&D's in 2016, but that was a completely different coaster type and resulted in far less severe injuries.
 
Dar said:
Did it still have the 5-point harnesses from FlamingoLand?

Watching the video of the incident and it's making such a horrible noise that they must have noticed it before?
Click to expand...
No, they'd been replaced with something similar, but not quite the same. When I rode it last year, on a couple of rides, it slipped off one side, and on another came open completely. Obviously, it's the lap bars doing the work anyway, but the new shoulder things were nowhere near as secure as the old ones.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk
 
This is horrendous. And something that should never happen.

I don't like jumping to conclusions but it does seem pretty conclusive that the rear wheels gave given way and the back car fishtailed in almost the exact same way as mindbender as has been said.

If the car has then slammed into the structure at speed as seems to have happened I'm not sure any kind of restraint will have helped there.

My heart goes out to those involved and their families. A day out at a park and riding coasters, a hobby we all here enjoy should never end in someone not going home. And while some of us will probably never get this credit now that's really a minor inconvenience compared to not coming home at all.
 
Heart breaking, as has been said already, it’s unthinkable that somebody should go out to a park for fun and not return. The screams that sounded like ‘mummy’ at the end of the first video send chills down the spine. Thoughts are with the families involved.

If there are no viable alternative trains to replace the originals, does this mean all the classic Schwarzkopf's are coming to the end of their useful lives? I’m no expert in Schwarzkopf, only ridden 4, but the track always seemed very well engineered, solid and smooth, where as the trains have always seemed dated, even in the 90s.

Edited to add: An article I just read showed some very graphical and disgusting images without any warning at all, so I implore you to exercise extreme caution if looking for more information. Perhaps just stick to this thread as the information I found was not even as informative as what has been said here already. Nobody needs, or wants, to see that :(
 
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Nicky Borrill said:
Heart breaking, as has been said already, it’s unthinkable that somebody should go out to a park for fun and not return. The screams that sounded like ‘mummy’ at the end of the first video send chills down the spine. Thoughts are with the families involved.

If there are no viable alternative trains to replace the originals, does this mean all the classic Schwarzkopf's are coming to the end of their useful lives? I’m no expert in Schwarzkopf, only ridden 4, but the track always seemed very well engineered, solid and smooth, where as the trains have always seemed dated, even in the 90s.
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Many of the large loopers had 5 trains originally, this ride included, although rcdb says it only had 3 in Mexico. Olympia regularly runs 5 (with 7 car trains as well) but a park model could easily run on two 5 car trains.

I posted a bit further up saying both sooperdooperlooper (Hershey) and teststrecke (German travelling) have new trains by extant manufacturers (edit: and new revolution) so it's possible this could be something that is rolled out on more Schwarzkopfs as time goes on, particularly as you say, their track design is very sturdy on a lot of their rides (less so on the jet star/wildcat models though). I think part of the reason many have so far stood the test of time is the sturdy track design, compared to other rides of a similar age. Just depends if people are willing to spend or not.
 
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SilverArrow said:
Many of the large loopers had 5 trains originally, this ride included, although rcdb says it only had 3 in Mexico. Olympia regularly runs 5 (with 7 car trains as well) but a park model could easily run on two 5 car trains.

I posted a bit further up saying both sooperdooperlooper (Hershey) and teststrecke (German travelling) have new trains by extant manufacturers so it's possible this could be something that is rolled out on more Schwarzkopfs as time goes on, particularly as you say, their track design is very sturdy on a lot of their rides (less so on the jet star/wildcat models though). I think part of the reason many have so far stood the test of time is the sturdy track design, compared to other rides of a similar age. Just depends if people are willing to spend or not.
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I hope at least some parks / operators do decide to preserve their Schwarzkopf’s by changing the trains. Accidents and maintenance issues aside, Olympia Looping is an incredible coaster, spoilt somewhat by the restraints. They actually put the missus out of action for 2 weeks after HPWW last year. They came down on her shoulders so hard that she was in pain for 2 weeks.
 
Nicky Borrill said:
I hope at least some parks / operators do decide to preserve their Schwarzkopf’s by changing the trains. Accidents and maintenance issues aside, Olympia Looping is an incredible coaster, spoilt somewhat by the restraints. They actually put the missus out of action for 2 weeks after HPWW last year. They came down on her shoulders so hard that she was in pain for 2 weeks.
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IMO with proper maintenance it appears that new trains aren't even needed as the isolated incidents are down to poor maintenance (or lack of) on certain train parts, something that could happen on any kind of rollercoaster. I think if Schwarzkopfs were dodgy we would know by now after many having run for over or nearing 30 years. I doubt as many would still be running.

Olympia looping is in excellent condition and well looked after from what I have seen.
 
SilverArrow said:
IMO with proper maintenance it appears that new trains aren't even needed as the isolated incidents are down to poor maintenance (or lack of) on certain train parts, something that could happen on any kind of rollercoaster. I think if Schwarzkopfs were dodgy we would know by now after many having run for over or nearing 30 years. I doubt as many would still be running.

Olympia looping is in excellent condition and well looked after from what I have seen.
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I think my thought process was that maybe some of the larger metal parts of the trains and wheel assemblies were difficult, or maybe even impossible, to source replacements for. All metal mechanical parts have a finite life, even with proper maintenance. My thoughts were based on an assumption though, and so probably not correct at all. But I never meant to imply that Schwarzkopf's were dodgy.

Would be interesting to know how readily available all of the parts are, given the lack of an OEM manufacturer and the ever reducing customer base for any aftermarket manufacturer of such parts.
 
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