Kentucky Kingdom (SFKK, KK) Discussion Thread

[AllenA07]

^They want to get rid of the ride because they don't want it in the park anymore. As I said in my above post, if they're taking it down to avoid liability, it's something called Spoilation of Evidence, which is a very bad thing to do, and I've got to believe that an attorney would inform the park of this fact.

[spaceace12]

"First, there is no one that wants this ride (taken) down more than our family so no one will ever have the opportunity to be hurt on this ride again,"

 

Something about this statement bugs me, it was in a article I got in a email. Yes, what happened sucks for the family and the girl, but this probably was a freak accident. Am I going to ride drop towers again since this happened, yes, and I already have. This is like being on any ride that has a malfunction that couldn't have been prevented (if the cable's on the tower were safe) and asking for that ride to be torn down because of one accident.

 

My question is, was this the only accident that a intamin drop tower? If so, out of millions of drops, one drop cycle malfunctions and suddenly the ride is bad?

[Scaparri]

^Well, the guy is from Kentucky. Can you really expect a logical thought process from the guy?

[IggyACE]

Girl takes her first steps!

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116539/wid/11915773?gt1=10710

 

Good to here.

 

Craig

[DBru]

Well, with SFKK being one of my home parks, I would like to add that there was ALWAYS a line for the ride. Granted, it wasn't always a long line, there was definitely a wait. I did a survey for math the other day, and my question was, "If Superman: Tower of Power were to reopen in 2008, would you ride it?" 92% of the 804 students surveyed reported that they would not get on the ride. This was very sad to me. But every time we went to Holiday World this year (since July), I heard AT LEAST four groups of people talking about how they weren't going to ride Liberty Launch because, "It's not safe!", or ,"I want to keep my feet!" Does that not make you frustrated?

[YoshiFan]

^ I noticed the same thing at Dorney. While in line for Dominator, I heard some people trying to scare their friends telling them about the SFKK accident to the point one of them didn't want to go on and was upset. I explained to them that Dominator is made by a different company and the ride had it's cables inspected. One of them said it's still the same ride and it doesn't matter.

 

I think they should re-locate the ride to a park that doesn't have a drop tower far away from SFKK (Great Adventure?) and people would be willing to ride.

[Sunfire]

The GP really are stupid. Whenever I go to my homepark, California's Great America, I always ride the Intamin Drop tower, even after the accident. But many GP will say stuff like, "I don't want to ride Drop Zone, a girl got her feet cut off on it!" Uhh, do these people pay attention to WHERE it happened? It happened on the other side of the country on the prototype version of the ride (please correct me if it's not the prototype.)

Also, about 8 years ago, a boy fell to his death on CGA's Drop Zone, and Intamin adjusted the harnesses to increase saftey, yet people still refrain, scared the same will happen to them.

 

Now, what are the chances that this will happen again? Not that likely. Drop towers operate hundreds of cycles each day. Two accidents have happened in the last ten years of hundreds of cycles a day. People really don't have anything to worry about. The way I see it, the chances of another horrific accident, are very slim.

 

Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm writing this half asleep.

[Tmcdllr]

It totally figures. Leave it to the general public to completely misunderstand something like this and blow it way out of proportion. When I hear stuff like that in line I just laugh to myself and say whatever. Try to explain to them they are way safer on the rides than in their car and you are just wasting your time. Again, whatever.

[Voyage_luvr]

It really makes me mad that people are so stupid. When I watched the news report on it I just wanted to smack some of the people who were interviewed. I'm willing to bet some of them didn't even witness it.

I hope they don't tear down this ride, because I love drop towers, even though I am freaked out by them I still love and ride them. I went on the S: TOP at St. Louis after the accident, and hey, look I'M ALIVE!

Maybe they should repaint and rename it. Maybe a Batman theme??

 

It's good to hear that she is starting to walk. I don't blame her for not wanting to ever go on a ride again after an experience like that, but still some of the gp are stupid.

[Angry_Gumball]

The GP really are stupid. Whenever I go to my homepark, California's Great America, I always ride the Intamin Drop tower, even after the accident. But many GP will say stuff like, "I don't want to ride Drop Zone, a girl got her feet cut off on it!" Uhh, do these people pay attention to WHERE it happened? It happened on the other side of the country on the prototype version of the ride (please correct me if it's not the prototype.)

Also, about 8 years ago, a boy fell to his death on CGA's Drop Zone, and Intamin adjusted the harnesses to increase saftey, yet people still refrain, scared the same will happen to them.

 

Now, what are the chances that this will happen again? Not that likely. Drop towers operate hundreds of cycles each day. Two accidents have happened in the last ten years of hundreds of cycles a day. People really don't have anything to worry about. The way I see it, the chances of another horrific accident, are very slim.

 

Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm writing this half asleep.

 

I see what you're talking about. One of the last times I rode Drop Zone, I heard some other GPs saying "I hope I don't get my feet sliced off like that girl did" and stuff like that. Yes, I had my experience with Drop Zone the day before the kid fell off yet this past season, that was the main ride I'd hit up as it's one of my favorite non-coaster rides there. I always hear from people though that I'm crazy or to be careful when riding on that ride as someone fell off of it. I just respond telling them that I double-check my harness to make sure it's locked, just to reassure them. the way I see, it's just a freak accident, and the rider just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when it happened. Lastly, today, I was grabbing my theme park sculpture I made and told one of the class mates about me being a coaster fanatic. He told me about FD3 and said that that movie could change my frame of thinking...lol...I told him that I've seen the crash scene and spoofs of it many times now and think it's funny.

[trustkill22]

I have to second that on every place I go with a Drop Tower (May it be S&S or Intamin) the girl whose feet got cut off always pops up. But if you think about it, there are car crashes every day and people get pretty messed up but people still drive them. Why can't it be the same for rides.

[Tmcdllr]

^Generally speaking, its like that because the GP is ill-informed or just ignorant of how truly safe amusement park rides are and that is unfortunate because it causes people to get the wrong idea and gives rides a bad rap and, its not fair to the parks either. The GP needs to be educated on the excellent safety records many rides have. As much as this needs to be done, I dont see it happening.

[ElToroExtreme]

Sending it to GADV wouldnt go over very well... considering we heard alot about it... On the local radio stations... newspapers... tv... ALOT of people know about it and everytime im at the park i hear about it! So sadly that ride would be better on the chopping block... I would ride it tho!!!

[PURE]

It totally figures. Leave it to the general public to completely misunderstand something like this and blow it way out of proportion. When I hear stuff like that in line I just laugh to myself and say whatever. Try to explain to them they are way safer on the rides than in their car and you are just wasting your time. Again, whatever.

 

And that's why I can't believe its being torn down because of this one incident.

 

I mean you have these things all over the place, none of them ever has a problem, some freak accident occurs simply because maintenence didn't catch it beforehand (I believe the cable was worn and wasn't replace when needed) and everyone is apparently freaking out.

 

But I guess other attractions similar to this like Verti-Go @ Knott's got pulled out even though the incident didn't even happen at their park. So maybe parks just don't have tolerance when certain rides cause injuries.

[Tmcdllr]

Can you imagine parks doing this every time there was an accident, even if it was the riders fault? Not likely but the thought makes me cringe. I think its great the park is doing something about it but removing it completely is a little too much. If it were not for the bad press and media kind of exploiting this I think the ride would have stayed put, where it should be.

[spaceace12]

The drop tower was the one of three good dry rides in the park. Everything else just sucked in my opinion (I liked Greezed Lightning, Chang, and the drop tower).

[HerBlackWings]

I was honestly let down when we didn't get to hit it on the midwest tour.

I LOVE how to this day, the GP equates this ride with EVERY OTHER superman-themed ride.

 

"Dude...some chick lost her legs, and her first-born on that superman coaster...."

[ginzo]

http://www.wlky.com/news/14887019/detail.html

 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The maintenance chief at a Louisville amusement park said the ride where a girl's legs were severed last summer was not designed to stop automatically in case a cable broke.

 

Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom ride maintenance manager John Schmidt said in a deposition just released that the Superman Tower of Power should have been designed differently.

 

Kaitlyn Lasitter and her family have sued the park over the June 21st accident. Fourteen-year-old Kaitlyn had one of her feet reattached and recently began walking with a prosthetic leg.

 

The ride, which was closed after the accident, lifted passengers 177 feet, then dropped them at speeds of more than 50 mph.

 

I can't believe it took SFKK this long to come up with a way to blame Intamin.

 

My brain isn't working well today. Any idea on what they mean by stopping the ride? Do they mean braking the drop car, stopping the lift motor, or both? And how would this have prevented the injury?

[RIP Psyclone]

Blame Intamin! Blame Intamin!

[spaceace12]

Also, if a cable is close to snapping, but hasn't, is there a easy detect it? If not, how would a auto e stop work.

 

Coming soon, all the towers will have to be shut down again for them to install equipment, not.

 

Once again, if this was a freak accident, how would you know it would happen till it happened. Looks like they are trying to blame someone else so they don't carry full responsiblity for the accident.

[COASTER FREAK 11]

I want to see if Intamin will respond to the report, and if SFKK ends up suing Intamin for a "faulty" ride design! lol, gota love Six Flags.

[astroworldfan1]

Yeah sue them! (not) That tower is 1 in a million!!

[Goliath513]

That was no design flaw, it was simply the result of negligence on the part of the SFKK maintenance department. When a ride is removed over an accident like this, it makes me wonder how SFNE's Superman has survived since that fateful day in 2004.

[coastercrazed49]

^Well know they have added seat belts, ankle restraints, and many other safety features. I don't think they would pull and entire major attraction out of the park. Since it dealt mostly with the train they would probably get new trains, but instead they added on new safety features.

[Evan1127]

Yeah, not all rides that experience accidents are removed. Parks will do whatever is most cost effective.

 

Since Superman is SFNE's star attraction and they knew it would continue to be, it was better to just modify it. They toyed with several alternatives, and none involved its removal. SFKK can probably survive without the tower, though, especially since its popularity has probably decreased significantly.

 

Edit: The seatbelts were already there, by the way. They added the shin cuffs and bars on the outside of the lapbars. They also added a computer system that prevents dispatch if a lapbar is not in an effective position.