Alton Towers Discussion Thread

[lewis97]

The article is purely circumstantial and is not based on official information provided by Alton Towers or the HSE.

[livai]

The article is purely circumstantial and is not based on official information provided by Alton Towers or the HSE.

human error is the only sure thing

[robbalvey]

The article is purely circumstantial and is not based on official information provided by Alton Towers or the HSE.

Oh, please. I'm pretty sure we all know this is exactly what happened.

[lewis97]

The article is purely circumstantial and is not based on official information provided by Alton Towers or the HSE.

Oh, please. I'm pretty sure we all know this is exactly what happened.

I'm not denying that the article covers what is the most probable and logical chain of events, but it is not official confirmation of what happened and is speculative in the same way that the vast majority of the enthusiast community have reached a similar conclusion.

[robbalvey]

^ Right, except they are clearly talking to people in the know which is clearly more than just "enthusiast speculation"...

The Mail on Sunday has learned that human error and a failure to follow basic safety procedures led to the devastating accident.

An engineer overrode an automatic safety lock, allowing the ride operator to send the carriage full of people careering into an empty vehicle that had ‘stalled’ further down the track.

As horrible as the British press has been about this incident, this article is about the most legit and accurate I've read so far. And let's be honest here, all you need to do is talk to anyone who has any experience with ride manufacturing, ride maintenance, which I have actually done recently regarding this accident, and there are only so many scenarios that are possible, so I don't really think this is totally left-field speculation anymore.

[TyRush]

Clearly it was a human error. They test and test and test these systems daily and while they can fail sometimes, it is not the best possibility in this case that it was the fault since it had allegedly stopped the train when it was suppose to. I wonder if the engineer could face charges from this? I mean he/she obviously didn't mean to crash the trains but c'mon how do you not notice it isn't back in the station.

[DrachenfireOP]

This does feel like a way more credible article, and really is the only explanation I can think of that makes sense. I'll be interested to see the official investigation results of course.

 

The worst part of that article to me is that one of the girls who lost a leg was a dancer. Even if it was just a hobby, that's earth shattering. However if that was her major or if she worked at a professional company, her career is now over because of this, and that's just horrendous.

[LuminousAphid]

they can fail sometimes

Systems should be designed so that any failure results in a fail-safe situation, which is exactly what initially happened. I'm sure that the engineers who create these control systems are aware of the concept, and do everything they can to ensure that a single failure in the system will never cause an unsafe condition. As with anything, there's always the possibility that catastrophic failure can happen (block brakes stop working entirely and a train in front is stalled) but in this case it sounded from the beginning like the control system and ride components worked as they should. There isn't really any other explanation, from what we know so far, for why the two trains collided other than human error.

[coasterkid124]

I wonder if the engineer could face charges from this? I mean he/she obviously didn't mean to crash the trains but c'mon how do you not notice it isn't back in the station.

 

Criminally, no. But they have likely already been fired and will be blacklisted from many new job opportunities. The only way that he can get in criminal trouble is if it's proven that he knew someone on the train and was trying to intentionally hurt them.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if when the Smiler reopens, it has much more strict controls. All somebody needs to have full control of the ride is the override key. From there, anything goes. The ride may have to be programmed to have a much more fail safe block system, as in no dispatch enable until all trains are sensed or stopped in a block, no inbetween.

[DrachenfireOP]

^ the article says they still work for the park. That said, I'm glad they are, for now. If they were fired but turn out to be innocent after the investigation, that's pretty shitty and they can then sue. By moving them to a place that they can cause no harm, but keeping then employed, they avoid that. After the investigation if they are found at fault, then they'll likely be fired/sacked.

[coasterkid124]

I guess I should read things before posting

 

There's a good chance that the employees are still working at the park for the investigation, but I don't believe that they will be working much longer. This is a multi-million dollar control system we are talking about, and even if a component made an error or broke, there are many, many backups that would have prevented the ride from starting. Even something as simple as starting the lift requires the ride to be in maintenance mode, so advancing trains without reinitializing the system would require a human to "be in the driver's seat"

[Morgan]

If the article is correct, I imagine that the two staff members in question may be liable to charges. I'm no expert, but if they have gone against the safety procedures that they have been trained in and presumably signed off against, they have knowingly 'broken the rules'. Regardless that Alton Towers is ultimately responsible for the safety of the guests, the two have acted against the procedures and are surely liable in some shape or form.

[Purplepills]

Personally I'm pleased this has been printed even if its not yet not any kind of 'official' outcome. People reading it will take it as fact anyway so I would hope this might instill a bit more trust from the public in terms of ride safety. Frankly if it was reported to be anything other than human error that would be very frightening. At least the article suggests park SOP's were breached and there shouldn't have been anyone on it when the engineer took over, rather than suggesting The Park lacks basic safety procedures.

 

For a Daily Mail article it seems surprisingly sensible.

[TyRush]

The most shocking to me is if that train had been stalled for some time, aren't there any cameras looking into that area since the station is enclosed? How did someone not see that

[RyanTPM]

^There are cameras covering that area, not sure why they didn't see it, if they didn't that is.

[robbalvey]

^There are cameras covering that area, not sure why they didn't see it, if they didn't that is.

This is the most puzzling that I think is what we all would like to know. There should (and were) many things that would have been alerting them to the stalled ride vehicle. The panel had to be throwing out warnings and errors. There are cameras in that area. Even park guests saw the vallied train and there were reports that guests tried to alert the staff. So why did that all go ignored and the staff choose to send the train in override mode anyway?

 

That's the big question that is what I'd like an answer to.

Edited August 24, 2015 by robbalvey

[KarlaKoaster]

Same here. It seems like such an elementary error. I've been asking myself the same simple question ever since this happened: HOW? It was always going to be human error, but Merlin take safety soooo seriously that there must be so many protocols and redundancy to avoid someone just accidentally pushing a button and sending a train into the same block as another.

[RyanTPM]

Well the people that were on the train said staff were coming to help, this is further evidence that they had the intentions of evacuating them before the lift was re started and therefore they must have known about the stalled train.

[Khat26]

I know this is out of left field but do you guys think the employee could've acted with malice? Disgruntled employees sometimes do horrible things.

 

Not saying this is the case but you honestly never know.

[robbalvey]

I know this is out of left field but do you guys think the employee could've acted with malice? Disgruntled employees sometimes do horrible things.

At this point anything is possible in speculation. My guess is more negligence than malice, though. As fail-safe as the system is, nothing can ever be 100% failsafe when you include "human error" into the equation. And the only really upside to all of this is that Merlin is very lucky the accident wasn't worse. Seriously, I think we are all amazed that both cars actually stayed on the track and that as bad as the injuries were, the fact that it was only "injuries" is a positive thing.

[Coaster Hero]

I can only imagine what would have happened if this accident was any worse than it was. I'm sure the media would rip Alton apart, even more so than they're trying to do now. ^You're right, that is a positive aspect if there was one.

[DrachenfireOP]

^There are cameras covering that area, not sure why they didn't see it, if they didn't that is.

This is the most puzzling that I think is what we all would like to know. There should (and were) many things that would have been alerting them to the stalled ride vehicle. The panel had to be throwing out warnings and errors. There are cameras in that area. Even park guests saw the vallied train and there were reports that guests tried to alert the staff. So why did that all go ignored and the staff choose to send the train in override mode anyway?

 

That's the big question that is what I'd like an answer to.

 

Unfortunately I think I can speculate with near certainty for a few of these. For the guest alerting the ops, that happens every day, and it becomes a boy who cried wolf scenario. The GP used to inform all the time about how they got stuck upside down in a loop for over an hour, how the lift chain broke, how their harness came flying up mid ride, etc etc. Now, at my park, they told us to call a supervisor every time. On the surface that sounds like an idiotic waste of time, but on the off chance something really was wrong, it could get addressed (and if not, at least a supervisor was dealing with it so we could go back to our job in peace).

 

If guests really were pointing it out to ops, I could see the convo going like this:

 

Guest: hey there's a train stuck on the track! (Means vallied train)

Op: (looks and sees train stopped on lift) oh its ok, it's perfectly safe.

Guest: but there might be a crash if you restart the ride!

Op: hey its ok, trust me, our computers prevent that, have a nice day!

 

As to the moron that put the ride in maintenence mode with guests on, holy crap is that ever idiotic. I mean, that isn't even just a huge SOP no no, it's about as far from common sense as you can get.

 

I won't speculate too much on the cameras because I dont know that much about smilers setup, but on the coasters I worked on, the monitors were tiny and only on evac areas. It was mostly for confirming train location in a setup or fault situation. Still, why the mechanic didn't first check for all trains accounted for is beyond me. Why they put the ride in maintenance mode with guests on, and no knowing where all trains were, is inexcusable. The fact that they did all that AND THEN jogged the lift chain WITH PEOPLE on the ride breaks every rule in the book all at once (you're not supposed to use lift jog with people on the ride since it bypasses the block system).

 

Fuck up doesn't even begin to cover it, and sadly people's lives were ruined over it.

[robbalvey]

^ Maybe it's just training from park to park, but I know at Disney, we were not trained to blow off guests like that. I mean, sure, I get your "boy cried wolf" scenario, but if a guest was legit freaking out or had a serious concern, it was not taken lightly.

[DrachenfireOP]

^ 100% agree, we were taught the same at Busch Gardens, and I'm pretty sure both chains have great safety records as a result.

[Morgan]

I think the more likely option regarding the guests reporting the valleyed train would be that they were probably telling the retail staff, as the people in the actual queue that would be able to see the train would not be in the vicinity of any of the actual ride staff, so I imagine that it would either be the staff in the shop at the ride exit and the kiosk in the middle of the queue. If this was the case, I could imagine that they wouldn't report it as it would be assumed that the ride staff would be aware and have it covered. Of course this is purely speculative though, Alton Towers staff are for the most part very good and I can't see any ride staff just brushing off anybody who came to them with a concern at all, without acting upon it.

 

I would imagine that now this story has gone into the press (although I'm surprised that it hasn't appeared elsewhere yet), we will see some kind of official statement in the not so distant future, to get the official line across. Also the sooner the outcome of this is out, the sooner it can be put in the past, it's obviously horrible for all those involved, but dragging it out is not going to benefit the victims or the park. Hopefully the park can start afresh next season, as I think it's safe to say that the rest of this season is a bit of a write off in terms of visitor numbers, unless Scarefest can draw people back.