Jump to content
  TPR Home | Parks | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram 

4 Dead in Rapids Ride Accident at Dreamworld Australia


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 138
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

POST REMOVED: The ride was NOT from Intamin. Please do your research before making posts or assumptions about an accident.

 

Sorry, I was unaware of the post which had posted above stating that Intamin had not manufactured the river rapids ride at Dreamworld. I do try my best at conducting research. The problem is that there are quite a few manufacturers of river rapids rides, so it makes it difficult to distinguish who manufactured the rides sometimes. I fully understand now that it was not Intamin who manufactured this one involved in the incident. This is an extremely rare and sad incident.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like Intamin, Funtime (a manufacturer of sling shot rides) issued a similar statement when they were getting some bad stuff when a bungee ride cord snapped. Does anyone know the manufacturer of this ride?

 

Well, here's the answer from DirkFunk as to who had manufactured the rafts:

 

Here's who manufactured the vehicles:

 

http://www.masterglass.com.au/project/theme-parks/

 

The ride has operated nearly 30 years without major incident; maintenance will likely be looked at very strongly.

 

Does anyone know if there are any other river rapid ride rafts manufactured by this manufacturer out there? Or are these the only rafts they've made for such an attraction? If not, I hope another incident as such does not occur.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man what a freaky accident! Such a sad day for a place that is designed to bring joy to people. I really hope the affected relatives get all the help and support they need in such sad times.

 

Accidents on a water ride always freaks me out the most.

Edited by _koppen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with that image as to what happened. Pictures are sometimes easier to explain than words.

 

If that raft in front of it got caught or stuck somehow, I could definitely see that happening, and the gaps between the planks on the lift don't help. And with the lift still running with the gaps between it and people falling onto it --yikes. STILL though, after operating for over 30 years this definitely seems like a freak accident. One of those "hit by lightning" scenarios.

 

So strange for the boat in front of it to be stuck though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks like this is how the raft got pulled under and flipped by the conveyor, based on the released image. Pretty terrifying...

Yep, that sort of thing is what I'm suspecting as well. I wonder - why didn't the lift stop or be stopped by the operations team when the first raft got itself stuck, if it did indeed get stuck? And if it wasn't stuck, how did two rafts end up so close together on the circuit?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This accident freaks me out. I spent 2 years working on a rapids ride and the idea of a boat tipping over never entered my mind once, I didn't think it could happen. So it's always horrifying to hear about freak accidents like this and know that this can happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone have any more idea as to who did manufacture this ride (I saw the earlier post about who may have made the ride vehicles, but was wondering about the conveyor system, etc)? Intamin is denying it is their ride, but every web site and database I have found lists Intamin as the manufacturer, I guess erroneously. The Courier Mail shown above says Intamin manufactured it in their article too. Weird.

 

The Courier Mail article has a diagram showing what happened, reflecting what was shown by an earlier poster:

 

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/dreamworld-deaths-ride-previously-shut-down/news-story/fc26918b83c58b095c795bcd34f1e815

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^Can it happen? Never say never. Will it? Extremely unlikely to happen ever EVER again. This is the old "struck by lightning" question.

 

Here's the thing, this ride has been operating for 30 years without incident. Millions of people have gone on this ride, without a problem. This incident is no doubt tragic---but it's a freak accident. To blow it out of proportion with 8 pages of articles, acting like these types of lifts are dangerous, or rapids rides are dangerous, after millions of people have ridden them, is just plain dumb.

 

I think the main thing that stands out between this rapid ride and others, is the lift hill conveyor.

 

Here is Dreamworlds:

 

 

Here is Knott's:

 

 

Here is one at a Six Flags park:

 

 

I think the biggest difference is Dreamworld's had "space" between the planks on the conveyor system, in fact it looks like if they wanted to, they could have put an extra 2 planks between the ones that are there now, like Knott's did with Big Foot Rapids. Why they weren't there in the first place is odd. I think after the boat in front of it was stuck, the back side of the boat's rubber raft got caught in between the planks while the lift was still moving, and caused it to flip, just like the image at the top of this threads page.

 

Six Flags' and Knott's belt system would make something like this happening virtually impossible. Instead of getting caught and flipping the rafts, they would just keep moving and the lift conveyor would just slide under the boat. But as far as I know the turntable and lift conveyor are in sync, if the turntable stops, so does the lift. The boat got caught, the turntable didn't stop, and neither did the lift.

 

It feels like an e-stop should have been pushed but wasn't, due to such a freak circumstance.

Edited by DoubleDown
Link to comment
Share on other sites

^While I agree that this is a horrible accident, EIGHT PAGES of coverage seems like quite a bit of newspaper real estate and overkill. Leave it to the sensationalizing media!

This is the same media that run a report every time Storm coaster e-stops on the lift hill due to wind. The sensationalized coverage is disappointing, but sadly not surprising.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roughly as many people were murdered in Chicago this summer as in Australia last year. 4 people dying at one of the country's biggest tourist attractions is a very big deal. If 4 people died at Disney World, half the Sentinel the next day would be nothing but coverage of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the main thing that stands out between this rapid ride and others, is the lift hill conveyor.

 

Here is Dreamworlds:

 

[snip]

Here is Knott's:

 

[snip]

 

Here is one at a Six Flags park:

 

[snip]

 

I think the biggest difference is Dreamworld's had "space" between the planks on the conveyor system, in fact it looks like if they wanted to, they could have put an extra 2 planks between the ones that are there now, like Knott's did with Big Foot Rapids. Why they weren't there in the first place is odd. I think after the boat in front of it was stuck, the back side of the boat's rubber raft got caught in between the planks while the lift was still moving, and caused it to flip, just like the image at the top of this threads page.

 

Great catch DoubleDown. I suspect when everything is done you may have hit the nail on the head. The lift seems to be a very close match to the one at Knotts. If I had to make a total armchair/not scientific/speculative guess my money would lead me to believe that either somewhere over the years only every 3rd plank was replaced, or it was designed differently in australia due to regulation differences. The one thing that would lead me towards that is that the spacing seems to be identical but the full length planks at have a different bolt pattern than the small blocks. It also seems to be slightly different from the knots one because the knots has two bolts on each side and the aussie one has 4 on the large planks.

 

It's a tragedy all around. Looking at this design I'm wondering if they would ever normally stop the lift. With the large gaps between each rail it seems like it would be much more dangerous if a "dumb passenger" decided to try to exit on the ramp, and stopping makes it more likely people will do dumb things. I've seen that exact scenario happen more than once at multiple parks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if i offended you all! I do get the differences of the platforms of both rapids rides the pictures i seen on this forum on page 7! It's just about two weeks ago when I was at Sea World San Antonio on Rio Loco all by myself I was somehow imagining this, but Rio Loco at SWSA is like Roaring Rapids at SFOT! The lift conveyor slipping under but doesn't have much conveyor too it it's just goes back around to the station, & that's about it! But I was just wondering sorry I didn't know I asked an odd question!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use https://themeparkreview.com/forum/topic/116-terms-of-service-please-read/