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Ohio State Fair accident


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The inspectors did their required jobs correctly-look at the report. No one realized that the formidable looking red/orange “beams” supporting the gondolas were actually 15 year old rusted-out bent sheet steel with the structural integrity of a cheap chocolate bunny. If they’d done the ultrasonic there they would have seen this years ago…and I imagine that’s what will happen to all similar rides going forward. This incident reminds me of the Aloha Airlines “convertible” that changed the way airframe integrity was evaluated.

 

 

Exactly.

 

The Aloha Airlines accident (which also killed one person) was the result of excessive stressing of the metal over many years. One of the passengers on that flight noticed a crack in the fuselage when boarding but chose not to say anything, thinking it was obviously not a problem since the airlines have strict maintenance policies.

 

I doubt it will take long to confirm if metal fatigue was the primary culprit here.

 

I wonder if the economics of portable fair rides is less conducive to better maintenance than fixed rides at the big chain parks. I also wonder if the frequency of accidents is going up or if the 24 / 7 aspect of the internet merely makes it easier to everyone to hear about these tragedies in real time.

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Lastly if you go watch the youtube video and set the play back to 0.25 you can clearly see that no one is falling out of the ride until AFTER the crashing sound. So the eyewitness that said the operator pushed the e-stop is likely flat out lying.

Perhaps. More likely, it's just another case of an eyewitness being unreliable. This happened in an instant, and was traumatic to see. The mind becomes overwhelmed in situations like this. It happens all the time.

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What is interesting is that I have read that there are more stringent checks on mobile rides than on fixed rides. That carnivals have more oversight from the states than do parks. I'm going to go Google it.

 

Lastly if you go watch the youtube video and set the play back to 0.25 you can clearly see that no one is falling out of the ride until AFTER the crashing sound. So the eyewitness that said the operator pushed the e-stop is likely flat out lying.

Perhaps. More likely, it's just another case of an eyewitness being unreliable. This happened in an instant, and was traumatic to see. The mind becomes overwhelmed in situations like this. It happens all the time.

The account is too detailed to be a misunderstanding. It sounds thought out and made up. The person claims to know that the operator pushed the e-stop after seeing a person fall out. How would they know what the operator said or did unless they talked to them?

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This whole disaster is very sad... My sympathies go out to all those who were affected by it. Didn't watch the video because I don't think I could stomach it, but seeing the pictures was enough to get the gist of what happened. It's going to be really hard to find someone to go with me to our local fair now (it starts next week). My sister, who usually loves carnival rides, is now terrified of going on anything at all.

 

Hopefully they will soon ascertain what happened, and prevent accidents like this in the future. I don't know enough about ride mechanics to offer any sort of opinion on what happened, but wow. You don't expect something like this to occur, even at a carnival.

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Horrific tragedy. From the picture of the arm showing the torn metal, it certainly looks like catastrophic metal fatigue to me. The floor looks intact in all video/pictures available to us. Had the gondola separated after striking an immobile object, I would expect the torn metal to be bent and have frayed edges and not be just a jagged tear. So I think it's more likely that the gondola separated and then hit something.

 

What I still do not understand is that even if the gondola separates from the arm, why would the restraints not stay locked? It appears that two of the seats remained locked; why would any restraint open in the event of separation? I'm wondering if immediately after separation the back of the gondola hit another gondola (causing the sound) which in turn caused the locking mechanism on two of the seats to fail. The video shows the gondola doing a 360 degree flip, which I would think would not happen had it separated and not hit anything. I'm sure investigators are already running physics modeling on this one.

 

If the girls' accounts are correct and the restraints failed, I don't see how that would lead to a catastrophic failure. I suppose the sound could have been due to a restraint mechanism hitting the floor at the base of the downswing, but I don't see how a tear in the arm would follow that. And the notion of an E-stop resulting in such a tear makes little sense.

 

Honestly, I wish we were in the days when we just read about these things, and didn't have the ability to watch it happen over and over at the touch of a button. And sadly I plead guilty to that. We've become so desensitized to tragedy that people see others in distress and whip out a camera rather than run to their aid. Civilization in decline...

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M heart goes out to everyone injured during this accident. I can't even imagine how horrifying that must have been. Just saw the video and ran straight here. Many themeparks have them (2 in NorCal), I wonder if this will affect them or just carnivals.

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Horrific tragedy. From the picture of the arm showing the torn metal, it certainly looks like catastrophic metal fatigue to me. The floor looks intact in all video/pictures available to us. Had the gondola separated after striking an immobile object, I would expect the torn metal to be bent and have frayed edges and not be just a jagged tear. So I think it's more likely that the gondola separated and then hit something.

 

What I still do not understand is that even if the gondola separates from the arm, why would the restraints not stay locked? It appears that two of the seats remained locked; why would any restraint open in the event of separation? I'm wondering if immediately after separation the back of the gondola hit another gondola (causing the sound) which in turn caused the locking mechanism on two of the seats to fail. The video shows the gondola doing a 360 degree flip, which I would think would not happen had it separated and not hit anything. I'm sure investigators are already running physics modeling on this one.

 

If the girls' accounts are correct and the restraints failed, I don't see how that would lead to a catastrophic failure. I suppose the sound could have been due to a restraint mechanism hitting the floor at the base of the downswing, but I don't see how a tear in the arm would follow that. And the notion of an E-stop resulting in such a tear makes little sense.

 

Honestly, I wish we were in the days when we just read about these things, and didn't have the ability to watch it happen over and over at the touch of a button. And sadly I plead guilty to that. We've become so desensitized to tragedy that people see others in distress and whip out a camera rather than run to their aid. Civilization in decline...

 

Having seen the video again the floor does indeed seem to be in the correct position, was down in the v shape, was looking at it wrong before. It doesn't hit the floor so yes it is most likely metal fatigue. By the looks of it the gondola separates and then hits the gondola opposite it, breaking the restraints causing people to fall out.

The restraints didn't fail. No-one was falling out until the gondola hit the other and broke the restraints.

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Ugggh. So sad to hear about this tragic accident.

 

I really would like to hear about the root cause, once released.

 

Photos and video make it look like structural fatigue or miss-assembly, but no way to really determine anything based on what we have seen.

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I am still shocked this sort of event happened. when I first saw video I figured the back of the ride hit that red structural support but now i'm not too sure. Either way no one deserves to see an event like this let alone be apart of it. A tragedy in every sense of the word.

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Freak accidents. Only two people were thrown form the ride. One from the broken gondola. The other when that man rammed into their restraints, breaking it. I believe it was one of those two was the person who died. Every other person in the broken gondola survived. A secondary seat belt likely would have likely saved their life. Being thrown from the ride is what killed them. This is exactly why I am willing to endure a few extra seconds for an "unneeded" procedure. Freak accidents.

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Looks like it is time to invest in the magniflux testing industry since a whole lot of KMG rides are most likely going to be getting a very through inspection. It is a quite a un fortunate accident and my prayers or with those affected. By the looks of the break in the picture on page 5, I cannot see anything that looks like tearing or bending along the break which also leads me to think that it is going to be a fatigue related failure. Merely speculation since, but often times rides like these are powder coated; powder coating creates a hard shell which can hide stress marks and fissures from the basic visual inspection. It would require Xray or ultrasound to reveal what the steel is like under the powder coat. I would be doubtful if many states require that level of inspection.

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operators of Fireball/Afterburner (FRB24) and Move-it (MVT24/MVT32) type amusement rides are instructed to cease operation of the ride until further notice. This instruction does not affect the Freak Out (FRB16, all serials), Sicko (SCK24, all serials), XXL (all serials), Revolution (FRB32, all serials) and newer generation Afterburner rides (FRB24, serials 40 and up)

 

Mall of America has proactively taken our ride out of service for additional inspection...Chance Rides, Inc. ...have advised all customers to take all versions of this ride out of service while additional inspections can be completed. Out of due diligence, Mall of America will keep our ride out of service until we have been given appropriate clearance by Chance Rides, Inc.

 

Apparently KMG says operate, while Chance says close it. This is interesting.

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Video is pretty graphic, warning. It's not from a distance like the other video & I had to turn it off at some point. Clearly shows the detached vehicle with 2 riders still in the seats, one in the most horrific position. Gives an idea of what happened though. I really hope those in critical pull through it looks really bad.

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They saw the ride get closer and closer to the ground with every swing. Either they were simply experiencing the terror of the ride as it was intended and are just mistaken, or the floor was indeed rising up.

 

Could be that the force of the ride was slowly bending the arm where it sheered off and with each swing it was weakened and bent more until finally it actually broke, so it could have been getting closer and closer to the ground.

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