Kentucky Kingdom (SFKK, KK) Discussion Thread

[coastrfreak2000]

I would even guess that the ride could probably safely operate with just one (or two) cable per car, and the others are present simply for redundancy. (Just a guess, I really don't know - but it would seem like a sensible way to engineer the thing).

 

It probably could operate fine with one cable per car. The Vekoma Boomerangs use only one cable and it pulls up an entire train of 28 people.

[Rastuso]

^^Gee, and you're from San Francisco, what a surprise.

 

CNN, and even the NYT do offer news. It's simply biased heavily to the liberal side. Why are things on Fox not "news". I don't understand that, and I'd love to hear you explain it.

 

-r

[swampfox]

Any news stations on cable should stop calling themselves news besides Headline News, as most of their programs are simply Op/Ed programs/news magazine programs like Nightline that give out hearsay as news or give news stories in the slant of a liberal or conservative. Nancy Grace, Bill O'Reilly, Paula Zahn, Chris Matthews, all of em.

 

They exist to cause a scene, and that is all. You want news, read the Associated Press. TV is for entertainment, and the internet is too cluttered with fakery.

 

As for the accident, which is what this thread is about, I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it, and the mass public, minus those who frequent SFKK will forget about it in a week.

[Rastuso]

You mean the AP that was printing photographs of staged situations in Palestine and doctored photos from a corrupt journalist?

 

You really think that AP stories are just the news with no bias? Did the AP report about the Hispanic guy murdered by Juneteenth celebrators ealier this week? Would they ignore a black person murdered at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert?

 

EVERYONE reporting news is biased. The only way to be fair about it is to present more than one person, and have them have different biases, which is exactly what Fox does. Hell, they even time each side to keep it as equal as possible. There is no sane argument that they are some evil one-sided fake news source. That's what the Daily SHow is, which is sadly where many young people get their news from.

 

-r

[imdrunk]

Wow. This thread took a quick turn in a different direction.

 

Back to the real point of this thread. . . .

 

I never liked drop towers. I rode the one at SFNO - once shooting up and once dropping down. They do nothing for me. Really.

[gonecrzyNSC]

Working in a 911 call center and taking calls for police, fire and ems, while dispatching for police, there's something I've realized. The news is never accurate. I read the newspapers and see the news all the time and think to myself, "I took or dispatched that call and that is TOTALLY not what happened." The thing about it is, the reporters listen to scanners. They hear something and they call in and try to get us to tell them what's going on. For liability reasons, we have to tell them nothing is going on, or if it's major, we direct them to whatever agency's PIO. There's so much stuff that goes on on third shift (my shift) that never makes it in the news, yet it's major! The reason it doesn't make it is because the reporters were asleep or whatever and totally missed the transmissions on their scanners. What they do get before they go and request the police reports could be incorrect. Especially ages, etc.

 

I can guarantee the 911 center in Kentucky lit up with calls from cell phones in the park each with a very different story and those call takers had to compile it all together quickly and figure out how to dispatch their emergency crews accordingly. So, I can imagine at first when it was dispatched, which was probably when the media first got ahold of it, nobody really knew exactly what they were going to find when they got there.

 

Even once the initial reports are presented you have a lot of varying reports from all the various witnesses.

 

It ends up being like the telephone game with a lot of the reporter's opinions being thrown in.

 

So, no, you can never trust the news media to be 100% correct on this or any other story.

 

Christie

[Cameron]

Now there's a scary viewpoint. How did you come to that conclusion? Honestly, what about Fox News makes them not legally "news". And don't get political, you said it wasn't political.

 

Did you read what I said? "They are all driven by advertising dollars, which means they all focus on ratings, which is why they sensationalize everything". Case in point, how many news programs show ads similar to: "New report says that this extremely common food will kill you in a painful, violent, bloody mess. Watch our report tonight.". And of course the report is of something completely benign, and the last thing they show on the news program. They sensationalize it, and spin it just for the ratings. The very stuff they report on is ratings driven .. it should be driven by importance.

 

It scares the hell out of me how many people (who can vote) are so biased and hateful towards Republicans that they despise Fox News

 

1) I can't vote (I'm not a US citizen).

2) I explicitly said that I dislike FOX "news" for reasons that aren't political.

 

Anyway I'm happy to discuss it further with you but not in this thread, PM me if you're interested. I love a good discussion, and I'll talk your ears off

 

Cameron.

[freestylenut]

Wow, this thread took a turn toward "media" rather than the situation at hand.

 

I'm REALLY curious how the heck this happened! Its indeed a "freak" thing and quite scary in fact. I notice the news covers the accident itself moreso than if the girl is going to be walk normally again the remainder of her life. I have a young son & daughter and I can only imagine the horror the parents must have felt knowing their daughters' feet were severed on a RIDE of all things.

 

Praying there's a silver lining here.

[Rastuso]

Guess I'll post on topic. I rode Hellevator at the ACE media day the morning before it opened to the GP for their Halloween event at the time. I loved it, and rode it many times that morning before leaving for Cincinnati and barely getting to work on time.

 

I also loved Dungeon Drop at SFAW. I'm amazed that this accident could even happen. Unless the cable snapped at the top, and the cable fell down and clipped her feet. Either that, or it broke off the lift buggy, and was hanging down the ride and her feet got caught in it and then she fell with the ridae and had them ripped off. Either way, it just seems so unfeasible for a failure like that. I can't see this as being anything but an unbelievable freak accident. I always looked upon these types of drop towers as being pretty much intrinsically safe. Guess I was wrong. Although this is still one freak accident in over a million drops probably. Still, not acceptable if it is from a design issue, but if it is from maintenance neglect, it is not a ride issue.

 

-r

[Rastuso]

2) I explicitly said that I dislike FOX "news" for reasons that aren't political.

 

Anyway I'm happy to discuss it further with you but not in this thread, PM me if you're interested. I love a good discussion, and I'll talk your ears off

 

Cameron.

 

Just a simple explanation. You bashed Fox in this thread along with many others. I'm just wanting one of those bashers to give me a reason why Fox is horrible in comparison to all other news channels, especially in a non-political way. There must be some huge thing, since there is so much extreme hatred towards them.

 

Or, as I suspect, it's simply extreme liberals saying it's not political when it absolutely is. Freedom of the press, as long as it supports the Democrat party, right?

 

-r

[mudvayneimn]

Oh give it up already people!

 

I was talking to some people on my street about the whole thing. Like almost everyone, they take the news as it is. When someone says that the ride fell to the ground, they focus on that and not the video showing that the ride is supposed to fall to the ground. That is something that people will do. Amusement parks aren't thought of as the safest places in the world so when news like this breaks, they forget that they'd have a better chance of pulling up to a stop sign, being carjacked, shot in the leg, kicked by a deer, and finally sprayed on by a skunk. I think I might have already said it on here, but this is a freak accident. Even if the cable snapped due to maitenence reasons, who could prepare for the cable wrapping around or slicing through a 13 year old's legs. Nothing can predict that, it's just an incident where all of the variables lined up to create something this terrible.

[gonecrzyNSC]

Oh give it up already people!

 

I was talking to some people on my street about the whole thing. Like almost everyone, they take the news as it is.

 

Yeah, that's close to what my point was, only you said it in a simpler way. The media sensationalizes everything and half the time what they have as information is not even correct. You have to take what you see and hear in the news with a grain of salt and an open mind.

 

It's horrible that this girl lost both feet and my heart goes out to her, but I dread the ride lynchings that are going to start occurring in the media over the next few weeks. Not to mention that this girl is going to have no peace and privacy for the long recovery that is ahead of her.

[Wes]

Can we stop bickering about what political biases particular news stations have and get back to discussing the actual event/making offensive foot jokes?

 

Let's try to stay a little bit on topic.

[jamesdillaman]

^ Yes, it doesn't matter if she preferred her left foot or her right, they were both severed. It isn't a political situation, just a very tragic accident that needs explanation.

 

I wonder what the investigation will turn up. I always felt a little unsure about SFKK when I went. The rides seemed to be down way more than at other parks in the area. Maybe maintenence is a problem?

 

-James Dillaman

[Calvin]

Jesus, it's like Six Flags over Rashomon.

[mudvayneimn]

I wonder what the investigation will turn up. I always felt a little unsure about SFKK when I went. The rides seemed to be down way more than at other parks in the area. Maybe maintenence is a problem?

-James Dillaman

 

Some of the rides at the park are super finicky, mainly Road Runner Express and Greezed Lightnin, followed loosly by Hellivator. Most of the reasons why rides go down is because the control panel operators don't hold something long enough, or stack cars, etc. The rides might go down, but there rarely is a major breakdown (totally excluding this incident) at the park. In recent times the only ride I've witnessed go down for the day shortly after opening was Greezed Lightinin. Roadrunner Express might every once in a while but that's a rarity. Although during the summer those two rides can be really sensitive, and on rare occasions a breadown on one of those rides might lead to the shut down of the other (not going into details). Like I said, SFKK is a very safe place to go and ride, with the exception of this and the Starchaser incident (pre Six Flags takeover). Maintenence at the park love their jobs and do everything they can to respond quickly and precisely, and make the rides as safe as possible.

[jmicha]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not before (don't have the time to read through 23 pages), but is it possible that the initial impact of the cable wasn't what severed her legs. From the eyewitness reports, the broken cable rapped around here legs. If the cable was rapped around her legs, then the car dropped, could the tension in the cable have suddenly increased dramatically, ending with the severing of the gril's limbs. As many have mentioned, this was tested on Mythbusters, and the only way they could cause the cable to cut through the pig was to rap the cable around the pig and then increase the tension suddenly. In my opinion, this seems like the only way that the poor girl's limbs could have been severed in this incident, considering that several reports say that the cable hit several people but only rapped around the one girl's legs, which would explain how the incident only seriously affected one person.

[bigjohnson51]

I always thought that foot choppers were more confined to inverted roller coasters... I never would have imagined a good one on a drop tower!

[Scaparri]

Well, looking on the positive side, once she gets her check from Six Flags/Intamin for the lawsuit, she'll be able to get a fine pair of prosthetic feet and live a somewhat normal life.

 

In 2001, former F1 driver Alex Zanardi suffered a crash in which he lost both legs above the knee. But today, he is able to walk, race, and even makes jokes about the situation.

[JFields]

My mom said she heard an interview on the radio where someone talked about seeing it happening, and then "seeing shoes fall." Unfortunately, well you know.

 

On the maintenance issue, as someone mentioned the maintenance guys at SFKK love their job. I have seen them around the park several times, and there are many of them who are there from season to season, meaning that they enjoy their jobs and take pride in the park, so they would do everything in their power to try and make sure something like this didn't happen.

 

Come to think of it, there are some of them who might be quite devastated as well. Imagine if you truly cared about your park and were the one (or one of the ones) who inspected the ride the day of this accident.

 

 

Edit: After someone mentioning it on another site, and looking at several of my pictures of STOP, I realized that, infact only two cables hoist up the cars on STOP at SFKK. Most Intamin 2nd Gens, including STOP at SFStL, have three cables, but STOP at SFKK only has two. This probably has something to do with it being the first installation of the 2nd GEN, and may or may not have been significant in the severity and occurance of the accident.

[Loco]

Ok, so did this cable snap while the cars were going up? Because if it did...Ummm couldn't the ride-op E-stop the cars at the top or something?

[imbordisux]

Quick question about the "Mythbusters" thing everyone is talking about:

 

I have never seen "Mythbusters", so I can't comment on any possible faults I might have otherwise been able to identify with the experiment(s) they ran, so I was hoping someone might be able to clarify this: in trying to prove whether or not a cable could cut through someone if it was whipped at a high tension, were they using the blunt edge of the cable? In other words, were they trying to see whether the round side could move at a fast enough rate to sever through someone? If so, I believe the case can be made that simply using this idea as a basis to why the cable couldn't have been whipping around fast enough is faulty, as, while a "whipping" action from the side of the cable might not be enough to rip through flesh and bone, it would seem that, should the cable have been frayed, the sharp metal edges would have been able to.

 

The only reason I bring this up is because it would seem that, should the cable have "coiled", and she had gotten her foot caught in it on the way down, the velocity at which she would be falling would have caused the cable to pull her underneath her restraint. Now, I'm not saying she would have necessarily been pulled OUT of the restraint, down and under the car, but if the cable had been "pulling" her instead of "slicing" her, it would seem that there would at least be SOME sign of her body being forcibly pressed against the restraint, such as, say, bruising on her ribs or something.

 

I'd still guess that her legs came in contact with some jagged edges from the broken cable, like being sliced with a razor blade, as, by all accounts, it sounds like it was a clean cut, not something that was "squeezed" off or pulled on.

 

Of course, I'm no physics major, so maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. Thanks to anyone who can answer my original inquiry, though.

[Loco]

BTW, Even a day after the accident, attendance is still high.

 

Although the accident caused one girl to lose her feet the accident didn't appear to slow business Friday at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. A large group of cars and foot traffic poured into the amusement park on Friday, during a warm, breezy, summer day.

[JFields]

Well, everything you said made a lot of sense, and kind of made me rethink about it.

 

But think about a ride-op. You're probably 18, 19, or 20 years old. All of a sudden, this happens. This, as most of us have said, is one of the last things you expect to see happening on a ride like this. Therefore, the one with the ability to stop would have been in shock, so even if e-stopping the ride at the top could have helped, it would probably have been very hard to do mentally.

[FeelTheFORCE]

The Pitt Fall at Kennywood was also closed briefly, but they inspected it, said it was ok, and it's open again.