22 People injured on a Vekoma Boomerang

[cfc]

But Boomerangs have been operating safely for decades.

 

 

Kind of...

 

"The Vekoma Boomerang: Now with three fewer concussions per ride."

[DougMJr]

But Boomerangs have been operating safely for decades.

 

 

Kind of...

 

"The Vekoma Boomerang: Now with three fewer concussions per ride."

 

I'll admit I totally set you guys up for that one, lol!

[happymercado]

Looks like the back car definitely made it to the station, found this tweet.

 

I think the translation of the news story from French made it difficult to understand. Sounds like when the train dropped from the first lift hill, the back car rolled back into the station while the rest of the train continued towards the 2nd lift hill, but the e-stop engaged causing it to stop at the bottom of the 2nd lift, after the loop. You can see from the images it's not actually valleyed--it's quite a ways up the 2nd lift when the e-stop brakes engaged.

[diggerg56]

I don't see how this is news, 28 people are injured on every boomerang every time they hit the "dispatch" button.

 

If this were facebook, I would hit "Like."

I despise almost everything Vekoma, Boomerangs, especially.

[NicoSierra91]

Here's an On-ride video of the accident and you can see when they lift backwards the train stops and the last car detached from the rest.

 

Edited January 13, 2015 by Moose

[Moose]

That is a very shaky video and you can't see the actual time of detachment, but it looks like the whole train started down the second spike. Not sure if the last car detached from the rest of the train before or when the brakes stopped the rest of the train.

[coasterschile]

^I think it detached WHEN the brakes stopped the rest of the train

[DougMJr]

^I think it detached WHEN the brakes stopped the rest of the train

That is the only explanation that I can wrap my head around, this is THAT bizarre. Study the few pixels this video has closely at 3:17, it does appear that the car in front of them does pull forward and vanish!

[viking86]

So it actually did become a single-car train going backwards through the inversions?? Wow, never saw that coming!

[coasterschile]

Maybe the material that connected the train had some fatigue, and the emergency brakes were accidentaly On, so when the last train was going through the loop the rest of the train were stopping and that made the detach. That's the logical explanation

[Midgetman82]

I think I sort of saw it in the video. When it released from the second spike to pass through the bottom, at around 1:26 the last car kept going while the rest of the train stopped. That's absolutely terrifying.

[Helix The Next Level]

It can't be possible.

The one possible thing is that it brocket in the first lift hill and then the train -1 car did the cobra roll and the other stuff. Then they slowly get down the last car.

 

This my theory

[rcjp]

So it actually did become a single-car train going backwards through the inversions?? Wow, never saw that coming!

Neither did I! It looks like it detached in the loop.

[DougMJr]

It can't be possible.

The one possible thing is that it brocket in the first lift hill and then the train -1 car did the cobra roll and the other stuff. Then they slowly get down the last car.

 

This my theory

 

But there's a video directly contradicting your theory that has already been posted...

[DrachenfireOP]

Ok, that is too damn crazy. After watching the video several times, I think what others have said is right. Either the ride or the operator initiated an e-stop for some reason. My guess is it happened right after the train detached from the second spike. Maybe something went wrong during the detachment of the train and the computer initiated an e-stop. So the train is IN the brake run when the e-stop goes, with the back car already clear of the brakes. Those brakes are crazy powerful, and slow the train train way down which makes it through the first part of the loop before rolling back to where we see it stopped. The last car was clear of the brakes and had fatigue on the linkage. Because the brake fins on the other cars are in calipers and the last car is not, the last car breaks free and completes the circuit while the other cars all stopped. If you look very closely, you can see the bulk of the train start to follow into the loop, then slow down and role back as the last car zips up through the loop.

 

Even with the probably damage to the linkage, that's still a 1 in a billion of this exact scenario playing out the way it did. I just can't believe it.

[shivtim]

Bizarre. They're incredibly lucky the detached car made it through the loop backwards, otherwise it would have come back and slammed into the rest of the train. That would have been a real disaster.

[DrachenfireOP]

^ Yeah, even at lowish speeds it might have produced a situation capable of a fatality. I think the likelihood of a fatality was still low all around, but probably in the realm of possibility if it hit the main cars just right (or wrong).

[terdferg]

Many years ago there was a major incident on moreys boomerang. I used to have the report from the state bookmarked but couldn't find it, but if i recall part of the train de-coupled after some fatigued bolts on the chassis failed, and part of the train came to a valley in the same spot.

 

If the catch car connects to the back car, is the weight of the entire train on the last cars connection each time its pulled up the first hill?

[gerstlaueringvar]

It's really lucky that we get to see what happened. Seems like the whole train was going down the second spike when the E-Stop is activated. The train was braked heavily when it was going up the loop backwards, then the back car detached from the train and made it through the course while the rest of the train was stopped on the second spike after going down the loop.

 

But did the 7th car damage the track? The whole train has 8 wheel sets and apparently the last wheel set went with the 7th car. So the front base and side of the 7th car must have damaged most of the track when it went through the course!

[Mechanic]

That was amazing. Not at all what I had envisioned happening. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be one of the riders in the last car.

[rcdude]

Wow, this is definitely one of the most bizarre incidents in recent memory. I'm very, very curious about how this happened. Obviously there was some type of failure (most likely a fatigue failure, though a missing component in the connection is also a possibility) that caused the last car to separate, but why did it do so at that point? I'm not convinced an E-stop occurred as the car rolled through the station and up the spike before stopping on the return trip, plus the rest of the train would probably have been on the loop instead of on the spike. I somewhat wonder if the ride was operating normally and the operator didn't hit E-stop until they realized only one car came back (or didn't press it at all and sensors were responsible for the stop). Hopefully more information will be revealed about this during the investigation.

 

On another note, it's very fortunate that nobody was injured too seriously from this incident. Had the train failed at a different point, the incident could have been much worse and could have possibly resulted in fatalities.

[SFOGdude25]

It looked to me that the car detached from the train about 1/3 of the way up the loop almost upside down. This accident is freaky. It's a miracle no one was seriously hurt.

[BDG]

So the train is IN the brake run when the e-stop goes, with the back car already clear of the brakes. Those brakes are crazy powerful, and slow the train train way down which makes it through the first part of the loop before rolling back to where we see it stopped. The last car was clear of the brakes and had fatigue on the linkage. Because the brake fins on the other cars are in calipers and the last car is not, the last car breaks free and completes the circuit while the other cars all stopped. If you look very closely, you can see the bulk of the train start to follow into the loop, then slow down and role back as the last car zips up through the loop.

 

Even with the probably damage to the linkage, that's still a 1 in a billion of this exact scenario playing out the way it did. I just can't believe it.

Yup.

 

It looks like the train first slammed into the emergency brakes for some reason, and that's where the "first" car of the train detached.

[gerstlaueringvar]

I think the train went through the E-Brake, detached on the loop then went down the loop and stopped at the E-Brake. From the video it looks like the 7th car detached about 3/4 up the loop.

[boldikus]

I would imagine (and also judging by the POV tho its hard to tell because of how shaky it is) that last/detatched car would absolutely TEAR through the rest of the course without the weight of the rest of the train dragging behind it. I can't imagine being in the backseat and then all of the sudden FRONT SEAT RIDE, GUYS! This accident is indeed freaky.