NEWS: Pndol (Pèndol) Tibidabo collapses - 1 Girl Dead

[robbalvey]

Has there been any update or further reports on this?

[Airtime&Gravity]

Not much new news other than the mayor of Barcelona is accepting the necessary responsibility. Unfortunately, one of the children injured is still in the hospital(or was as of a few days ago).

 

En la apertura del último pleno antes de las vacaciones, el alcalde de Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, aseguró que asumirá las responsabilidades que le correspondan por el accidente del sábado pasado de «El Péndulo», donde falleció una adolescente tras desprenderse la base de la atracción. En la declaración en nombre de todos los grupos municipales, el alcalde recordó a la adolescente y expresó el pésame a la familia de la menor fallecida. Hereu recalcó también que exigirá responsabilidades externas y que asumirá «las propias y que tomará las medidas correctas que se necesiten» para mejorar la seguridad del parque.

La joven de 15 años que resultó gravemente herida en el accidente del sábado sigue ingresada en el Hospital Vall d´Hebron y se encuentra estable, evolucionando favorablemente tras haber sufrido lesiones y fracturas en las dos piernas, con especial afección en la derecha y con problemas vasculares importantes. Los otros dos adolescentes de 15 años heridos en el accidente, un chico y una chica, ya fueron dados de alta el domingo y el lunes respectivamente.

Con la reapertura del parque el pasado miércoles, la empresa gestora Patsa inició la revisión de los protocolos de todas las atracciones con el cierre de la atracción «El Huracán». La empresa decidió iniciar el proceso de revisión por esta atracción debido a que es la estructura mas similar a «El Péndulo».

Tras el accidente, el alcalde Hereu solicitó la revisión de los protocolos y procedimientos de seguridad y una auditoría externa solicitada al Colegio de Ingenieros Industriales de Cataluña, con el fin de comprobar que los procedimientos previstos se hayan ejecutado correctamente y de mejorarlos en el caso de que fuera necesario. El accidente del sábado y el posterior cuestionamiento de la estructura y de las condiciones de seguridad y de «El Péndulo» tuvieron también repercusiones a nivel internacional con el cierre de una atracción de características similares en el parque de atracciones de Brighton Pier en el Reino Unido.

La dirección del parque optó el jueves por cerrar la atracción llamada «Super Booster», de características similares a la atracción barcelonesa, para inspeccionar a fondo las condiciones de su estructura y garantizar su seguridad. La atracción del parque británico, al igual que la del Tibidabo, fue fabricada por la compañía italiana Fabbri Group.

 

 

 

At the opening of the last plenary session before the holidays, the Mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, said he will assume the responsibilities which it is responsible for the accident last Saturday of "The Pendulum", where a teenager died after discard the basis of attraction . In the statement on behalf of all local groups, the mayor reminded the teenager and expressed his condolences to the family of the deceased child. Hereu also emphasized that require external responsibilities and assume "themselves and take the right steps are needed" to improve the safety of the park.

The 15 year old boy who was seriously injured in the crash on Saturday is admitted to the Hospital Vall d'Hebron and is stable, progressing well after suffering injuries and fractures in both legs, with a special condition in the right and problems major vascular. The other two adolescents aged 15 years injured in the accident, a boy and a girl, and were discharged on Sunday and Monday respectively.

With the reopening of the park on Wednesday, Pats management firm launched the review of protocols for all attractions to the closure of the attraction "The Hurricane." The company decided to start the review process for this attraction because it is the structure most similar to "Pendulum."

After the accident, the mayor Hereu requested a review of the protocols and safety procedures and requested an external audit to the College of Industrial Engineers of Catalonia, in order to verify that the procedures have been correctly implemented and improvements in the case of necessary. The accident on Saturday and the subsequent questioning of the structure and safety conditions and "The Pendulum" also had an impact at international level with the closure of a similar attraction in the amusement park of Brighton Pier in the UK .

The management of the park on Thursday, chose to close the attraction called "Super Booster", with characteristics similar to the attraction of Barcelona, to thoroughly inspect the conditions of its structure and ensure their safety. The attraction of the British fleet, like that of the Tibidabo, was manufactured by Italian company Fabbri Group.

 

Link

[TheScooterGuy]

Here's a news report of the accident:

[oriolat]

Update:

 

Just a month ago PNDOL collapsed leaving 3 injured and 1 dead and splitting into two the last turnaround from the log flume ride. 3 investigations were set: one by the Park, one by the City Hall (owner of the Park) and one by the Police. The investigation carried by the Police has already concluded but there are no public results yet.

 

Besides, on Monday 23rd of August works to remove the ride started and, as of today, the ride is no longer in the Park. Even with the removal of the ride, the City Hall will keep the whole ride locked if any of the parts need to be reinspected to look for further evidences.

 

Here you can see the last piece from the flume ride "La Mina d'Or" taken from the so called "0 Zone":

 

In a recent press release, Park President Saura Jaurrieta announced that the Park won't be placing any thrill ride in the spot were PNDOL stood. Instead, the Park will build a family attraction to "allow parents to interact with their children". I don't know if that means a ride or just a sort of interactive playground. Let's hope it's a ride since Tibidabo is lacking in the rides department and they are running out of space to expand...

[robbalvey]

Thanks for the update. Did they pull the log flume out as well? Or are they replacing the damanged parts? How is it that no one was injured on the log flume? Were there not any boats out on the circuit or did they all get congested? It seems so weird that a part of the log flume would have been destroyed and the boats out on the circuit didn't go falling off the end! Did they just get lucky with that one?

Edited August 25, 2010 by robbalvey

[oriolat]

Thanks for the update. Did they pull the log flume out as well? Or are they replacing the damanged parts? How is it that no one was injured on the log flume? Were there not any boats out on the circuit or did they all get congested? It seems so weird that a part of the log flume would have been destroyed and the boats out on the circuit didn't go falling off the end! Did they just get lucky with that one?

 

No! The log flume is coming back in 2011. The only part that needs to be redone is the last turnaround before the big drop. In fact, the Park has already ordered the pieces to Reverchon. I guess they will also have to inspect the foundations of the log flume to look for potential damage from the weight of the arm falling on the turnaround.

 

All boats were operating but when PNDOL collapsed but the ride operators did an E-Stop that saved at least 4 people. There was a boat *this close* to enter the last turnaround when the ride stopped, and the previous boat had already hit the splash zone, so the Park was lucky enough in that way. Immediately after that, the flume was evacuated starting from the log on top of the second lift leading to the last turnaround.

[hemmy]

I am way late to this discussion - but something like that happening is one of my worst nightmares. (Seriously, I have dreams about that stuff happening all the time, I am a little sick in the head)

[Dailey Enterprizes]

^ There's nothing wrong with thinking "what if" because anything can happen. This isn't Pleasantville... but I wish tragedies like this didn't have to happen.

[TheScooterGuy]

If I saw the accident occuring, I would say "Son Of A B***h!"

[oriolat]

Here you can see another picture of the removal and how the turnaround section on the flume is missing:

 

 

Source: CAPTE.org

[ciriliox]

The results about the investigation will be released (theorycally) in February 2011. But we have an advance...

 

google-translated summary, i rectified the most noticiable mistakes:

 

Tibidabo's Pndol fell by poor construction of the ride

 

The Pndol, the attraction of Tibidabo which collapsed last July 16, killed a young woman and wounded three other teenagers, fell by poor construction of the attraction, as a first step of the expert report submitted in court , which, however, still can not advance the ultimate reason for the loss.

 

In fact, the expert's work is not over, and until February will not provide the final outcome of their study.

 

[...]

 

The screws were broken by the fall, and and not vice versa.

 

[...]

 

The area where the ride was built was very wet, and this may undermine the basis.

 

http://www.lavanguardia.es/sucesos/noticias/20101124/54073790165/el-pendol-del-tibidabo-cayo-por-la-mala-construccion-de-la-atraccion.html

[robbalvey]

I know it's been a while, but I've been going through a lot of footage I've shot over the years, and finally came across the pndol footage. Here is it...

 

(Do me a huge favor - click the YouTube link and subscribe to our channel!)

Edited January 22, 2011 by robbalvey

[beatle11]

^You had so much fun on that ride too. It will be interesting to see the results of the investigation when they get released.

[ciriliox]

Well... Some fresh news:

 

(thanks to google translator again)

 

---

 

Barcelona (EFE) .- The head of the magistrate court number 2 in Barcelona called to testify as defendants ten technicians for the fatal accident of "El Pèndol", at the Tibidabo amusement park, as reported by Efe (news agency) judicial sources .

 

The judge has accused the new people who requested the Office of Catalunya and added one tenth, an official of the Italian company that designed the attraction.

 

The defendants are three maintenance technicians of the attraction, which in July 2010 killed one child, as well as engineers and technicians responsible for the design of the park, construction, installation and maintenance of the attraction.

 

One of the suspects is the Tibidabo park technician responsible for coordinating maintenance actions of the attractions, as well as employees of both companies had commissioned external review of "el Pèndol".

 

One of these is outside employees, according to judicial sources, the operator who only hours before the accident was told that emitted strange noises and moved in unusual ways.

 

They will also have to declare as engineers charged with the manufacturer of the attraction (Fabbri) and technicians of the municipal Tibidabo Amusement Park responsible for the project for the installation of El Pèndol.

 

Other objections are those of the COPISA construction professionals, responsible for the installation works and foundation of attraction in the park of the Tibidabo.

 

The allegations of the prosecution is based on the expert report on the causes of the accident at El Pèndol, which states that the appeal fell due to an accumulation of deficiencies in both its design and its installation and maintenance of it.

 

Specifically, the report argues that the appeal fell by a groove in its anchorage and progressive mechanical fatigue of steel with which it was built. In the opinion of experts, selected steel for the manufacture of the anchor of attraction was not adequate, or correctly applied mortar fill to ensure the integrity of the structure.

 

The expert report also notes deficiencies in the maintenance of the attraction, which was commissioned two external companies that made periodic reviews of the installation.

 

---

 

It's scary and serious. Really serious.

 

source: http://www.lavanguardia.es/sucesos/20110322/54131280232/diez-imputados-por-el-accidente-mortal-de-la-atraccion-de-el-pendol.html

[brightonpiermad]

I have just read through the whole discussion board regarding this accident and I was shocked when it happened. My thoughts do very much go out to the families of the dead and injured. I want to get to the bottom of what excatly happened regarding the Super Booster on Brighton Pier. It opened in April 2006 but didn't stay open for very long as I gather there werte problems with it and it was closed for nearly a year. The amount of downtime that it had was incredible and even when it did reopen in February 2007 it continued to have many problems and was closed numerous times. I thought that Brighton Puier would be getting rid of it because it wasn't worth keeping it open. I live in West Sussex in the UK and am quite close to Brighton Pier. So I travel down to Brighton to watch the ride in action because although it is too scary to go on it is good fun to watch. As I feel there are a few people on this forum who would know something about the Super Booster I would like to ask the following things about it:

 

The tiopping of the seats onnce the platform has moved out. Sometimes they can tip quite a lot and cause a screaming reaction from the riders.

The platform as the ride which crashed in Spain had a platform which moved in and out automatically being operated by a button in the operators cab. The Super Booster on Brighton Pier has a lever on the platform which a staff member had to push after each ride to move the platform back in. That meant that there needed to be two staff with the ride at all times with one of them staying on the platform during a ride cycle. For the one in Spain I think they would have been able to get away with only one staff member because of the platform set up.

Staff to stay on the platform or not during a ride cycle.

You can put my post in a seperate topic if you like because I don't really want to go off topic but I wanted to try and find out some answers to questions that have been bugging me now. Finally I would like to say that I was on Brighton Pier today and I am NOT happy with the decision of closing the Super Booster because of ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS - in other words the WIND was too strong! Crazy Mouse, the Booster and Turbo Coaster were all open and operating fine so why NOT the Super Booster?