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

4 Dead in Rapids Ride Accident at Dreamworld Australia


Recommended Posts

Oh wow, yeah my bad I'm usually good at catching that stuff!

 

I'll leave my original post just because of the responses, but clearly my photo was not the same ride.

 

And again from the photos bird eye I thought it was at the bottom of the lift, but after looking again it was at the top. But it IS strange to me that the boat in front of it is so close and still sitting there. It looks like it may have gotten caught, and as the boat came up behind it, the raft caught the top of the other boats raft, and as the lift kept going it might have been what caused the lift.

 

Sorry, I have a tendancy to figure out what the heck happened when I see stuff like this, I wasn't trying to base anything I said as fact, I was just putting it out there what I saw to maybe get a little more info from you all on these boards.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 138
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I hate Australian Media - now they're reporting on all incidents that have happened at Australia's theme parks ever, stop the fear mongering! While tragic it's not like this is an everyday occurrence. Most of what that reported on is a general breakdown where all safety systems worked exactly as they should.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is tragic, and baffling how it could happen, you could kind of understand if a boat flipped mid-ride, but as it was leaving the lift back into the station where it would be moving at a relatively slow, gentle and controlled speed.

 

I hate Australian Media - now they're reporting on all incidents that have happened at Australia's theme parks ever, stop the fear mongering! While tragic it's not like this is an everyday occurrence. Most of what that reported on is a general breakdown where all safety systems worked exactly as they should.

 

This will no doubt continue, in the UK ever since the Smiler incident the press report more or less on any sort of breakdown, even if it's a minor stoppage of a few minutes. Most of the time they make it sound like it was a deadly and terrifying situation for anyone involved, which to me is fairly disrespectful to those that were involved in real accidents, I've seen more comments by the attention craving people who were 'scared for their life' because they were stuck on a brake run for 20 minutes, than I have from any of the real victims of actual accidents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a separate note, I have a feeling we will be seeing another theme park related accident within the next few days. . . These things always seem to come in twos.

You are a horrible human being.

 

For stating something that's true?? Look at almost every single theme park accident, almost every time there is an accident, there is a second one not to far away, and I am not the first one on these boards to mention it. It's been mentioned several times before in other theme park related accident threads.

 

Hopefully not another. We've already had Tayto Park's accident last Saturday. This can be number two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This will no doubt continue, in the UK ever since the Smiler incident the press report more or less on any sort of breakdown, even if it's a minor stoppage of a few minutes. Most of the time they make it sound like it was a deadly and terrifying situation for anyone involved, which to me is fairly disrespectful to those that were involved in real accidents, I've seen more comments by the attention craving people who were 'scared for their life' because they were stuck on a brake run for 20 minutes, than I have from any of the real victims of actual accidents.

 

About 2-3 weeks ago the media reported that a Seaworld rollercoaster had a e-stop, so they are already doing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I even though knowing the chance of it happening is extremely low have always had a bit of a ridiculous fear that the boat would flip just before that part of a rapids ride. I still ride but coming into that spot on White Water Canyon I can't help but think about it.

 

Terribly sad for all involved. not a good story to start the day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Merlin have closed all their rapid rides by the looks of things. Alton Towers rapids are closed, along with Thorpe Park's. I thought they would do this and they have. I guess they are taking no chances, does any one know if other parks have taken this precaution and closed their rapid rides?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Merlin have closed all their rapid rides by the looks of things. Alton Towers rapids are closed, along with Thorpe Park's. I thought they would do this and they have. I guess they are taking no chances, does any one know if other parks have taken this precaution and closed their rapid rides?

 

US Parks haven't opened yet for the day so we'll wait and see. What model is this exactly though? I think most of the US Parks have the bigger rapids boats.

 

Finally saw some footage on US TV about this. The accident appears to have happened in a different spot than some of the previous accidents that have been discussed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OMG, I am so sorry to see this notice, it's always pretty scary and sad to see that someone died in an amusent park, where you go to have fun

 

After reading some of the news, it seems clear that there was some problem with the lift stop, but I have to say that I also think there could be a mistake on the lift ride design. Seeing the pictures of this ride, it's easy to see that there are big gaps all over the lift, and it's not hard to think that people could easily fall under the attraction and suffer big injures. You can see the full mechanism in this video (minut 3:53):

 

 

My point is that, maybe with another lift design with less gaps on it (like this one, for example: http://www.familyvacationhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/shipwreck-rapids-water-ride-end-seaworld-san-diego.jpg) an accident like this, with 2 rafts colliding, wouldn't probably be that devastating. ¿Do you know something about what I'm telling? I just don't know if the design of this ride is very common, and although I'm just speculating (sorry about that), I want to see what Intamin has to say about all this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ Merlin use a different manufacturer to the one in Dreamworld, but as I say, they are taking no chances.

The Rapids at both Alton & Thorpe are Intamin.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Intamin have confirmed themselves that the rapids at Dreamworld aren't manufactured by them though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's an image of the situation, courtesy CNN (U.S. cable news network):

 

 

Looks like a freak accident. Speculation based on the image - the front raft appears to have been stuck, and the lift hill was never turned off. With nowhere to go the back raft gets dragged upward (on top of the front one) and subsequently backward, ejecting the riders as a result down into the mechanism of the lift. Scary stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ Merlin use a different manufacturer to the one in Dreamworld, but as I say, they are taking no chances.

The Rapids at both Alton & Thorpe are Intamin.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Intamin have confirmed themselves that the rapids at Dreamworld aren't manufactured by them though.

Then that would explain why the design of this ride is so different than the Rapids of Intamin we use to know This is also a pretty old attraction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's an image of the situation, courtesy CNN (U.S. cable news network):

 

Looks like a freak accident. Speculation based on the image - the front raft appears to have been stuck, and the lift hill was never turned off. With nowhere to go the back raft gets dragged upward (on top of the front one) and subsequently backward, ejecting the riders as a result down into the mechanism of the lift. Scary stuff.

 

That's a seriously disturbing image, knowing that four people died in that spot. Your speculation seems reasonable, it will for sure be interesting to know the full cause of the accident.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^The statement on their website says that they neither manufactured the ride or supplied it. So i'm under the assumption that Intamin simply were not involved at all.

 

It sounds like NBC (possibly among others) stated that it was built by Intamin and reached out to them, initially reporting that they were "unavailable for comment". Once they did comment they updated it but at that point everyone else had taken it and ran with it. It seems like quite a few major news networks worldwide have likely chosen to get their information from Wikipedia.

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/