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Icon Park - Drop Tower (Orlando FreeFall) - Dismantled and Gone


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I’m 100% with those saying don’t blame the operators. 
These multi million dollar (deadly if not run properly) machines are literally put in the hands of teenagers and low wage employees. 
They need to be engineered to not ALLOW unsafe operation. A light on a panel saying restraints are good naturally gives a false sense of security to the operators that everything is 100% safe if the ride wasn’t engineered to contain anyone it could dispatch with. 
That’s just exactly what’s happened here. You don’t have to be an expert in control systems for this to be obvious, but when you are one it’s even more obvious. 

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5 hours ago, rachelmadcow said:

ICON Park was looking for a record holder and didn't want to spend a lot of money here we are. 

Funtime wanted to make a record holder but didn't want to spend money designing testing seats/restraints so here we are.

Oh STFU

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You all can discuss this but please don't resort to any personal attacks. This incident is a big deal and there are too many variables at play to make a definitive decision about the cause. There's definitely an issue with the harnesses not having seat belts and potential verify limits, but there's also an issue with the behavior of the operators as evidenced by the video, and the Sling Shot group's general operational attitude. Please stick to "I think that" or "I believe that" until details are officially released from the investigation.

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Intamin drop towers did not originally have belts on them.  They were added after an incident similar to this occurred at what is now California’s Great America but was at the time still owned by Paramount in I believe the late 90s.  Just putting the blame on the tilt is a mistake, although I believe tilt definitely made it more likely to occur.

I hate seeing accidents repeat.  I would not be surprised to see the tilt removed, but I also expect Funtime to come to the same conclusion Intamin did, a seat belt between the riders legs connecting the OSTR to the seat is necessary.

My understanding is this park is owned by a subsidiary of the manufacturer.  Roughly a year since they had a cable break on the slingshot over at Old Town.  Also a few years ago they had an employee death during maintenance on the sky flyer.

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How is this any different than when SROS threw someone, Holiday World, Knotts, etc... Did any of those parks shut down the day after? Highly unlikely...


Why would this be any different? It's one thing if the tower itself was open again... But who cares if other stuff in the park is/was?

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15 hours ago, rachelmadcow said:

The guy riding FF appears to have the restraint just as high as the victim on Icon Park's tower.

Along with seat belt backup, that tower also 'tilts back' prior to (or just entering) brake run so high G's are pushing body straight down into seat. It really surprised me Icon has their tower hit brakes still tilted forward, which puts extreme amount of force on the exact portion of OTSR's which allowed guest to slide out. Prior to accident I assumed it also tilted back during drop, but nope.

*of course we'll only know reasoning after full investigation. Video and picture clearly shows how high OTSR's were prior to ride, and moment he slid out was when braking started. 

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Another thought came to mind today... we've seen videos of people passing out on Sling Shots. With how easy he slid out and the way he looked as he fell, I wonder if he passed out on the way down before the brakes.

To be clear, im not saying this would be the primary reason for him falling, but a contributing factor.

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Honestly I thought by this point in time having a seatbelt that runs between the legs and connects the seat and the OTSR would be standard equipment for any drop tower. With S&S I believe they have always been there, Intamin started putting them on drop towers following the accident at Great America and old ones also got them added, even the Larson towers have them.

Besides serving as a way to prevent riders from falling out under the OTSR, they also have the bonus benefit of keeping riders too big off. You may be able to pull the OTSR down but if you are unable to fasten the belt you still are too big to ride.

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5 hours ago, KarlaKoaster said:

I read in a report that the Slingshot Group rides (Freefall, Slingshot and Star Flyer) were closed, but I guess the rest of the park was open - do they own/operate all of it?

It's not a "park" the way they're talking about it on the news. Icon Park is just an outdoor area of I-Drive that has a ton of restaurants and shops NOT ASSOCIATED IN ANYWAY with the Slingshot Group/Funtime/Free fall accident. We eat at the Carrabbas, Outback, Shake Shack, and Yard House there all the time. 

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13 hours ago, PKI Jizzman said:

I am appalled that Slingshot group / Icon were open and running the other attractions yesterday. I'll never set foot on their properties my lifetime. 

I wasn't going to go anywhere near these rides even before the accident. Neither one interested me.

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6 hours ago, Invertalon said:

How is this any different than when SROS threw someone, Holiday World, Knotts, etc... Did any of those parks shut down the day after? Highly unlikely...


Why would this be any different? It's one thing if the tower itself was open again... But who cares if other stuff in the park is/was?

You've been on this forum for some time I'm surprised you're pressing this question. Why? You're not comparing apples to apples. It's not even close. 

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57 minutes ago, Manic Monte said:

I wasn't going to go anywhere near these rides even before the accident. Neither one interested me.

I love thrill rides outside of skyflyers and slingshots and the chain swing rides, so a massive drop tower sounded great to me but tbh I didn't realize there were no seatbelts. I have total faith in hydrolics/ratcheting restraints. Fun Time has a lot of things to address here. I really hope we are able to understand what the hell happened and why and can learn to never ever ever ever ever have a situation like this happen again. I am so sad for the family who was out for just good clean fun like the rest of us not even thinking something like this could ever happen. 

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I personally don't have a problem with the park opening up, but my tolerance for these sorts of things is higher than most. It's like... what is the industry standard for how long to stay closed "out of respect?"  

On 3/25/2022 at 11:06 PM, rachelmadcow said:

Funtime is 100% responsible with the operators only being responsible if they didn't follow protocol.

Pace yourself. When it comes to jumping to conclusions, it's not a race.

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Unless we find out that the restraint check system told them that the rider wasn't secure, I don't think we can say it was the operators fault. 

 

I would like to think that people would know that he didn't look safe, but come on. 

 

This is so sad. A belt between his legs could have saved him. It wouldn't have been fun, but it should have been there. 

 

Honestly, the safety systems and engineering behind these restraints just seems sloppy. I know that other manufacturers have made mistakes, but we need to learn from them. I don't mean this to be rude, but they need to consider the safety of larger passengers. Either make sure they're safe, or make sure the ride won't let them on. 

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12 hours ago, PKI Jizzman said:

You've been on this forum for some time I'm surprised you're pressing this question. Why? You're not comparing apples to apples. It's not even close. 

How is this not even close? Genuinely curious.

Other attractions, due to fault of restraint design much like this, have had incidents that have killed riders elsewhere that did not cause the closure of the entire park following... SROS at SFDL, SROS at SFNE, Perilous Plunge, New Texas Giant, Drop Zone, etc... The rides close for investigation, the parks do not.  

I don't see why in this case why it would be any different. Why do you?
 

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32 minutes ago, Satans Hockey said:

This story just shows the worst aspect of social media. I can't even imagine being those parents and family/friends and knowing that so many people watched a video of your loved one dying.

I agree with the sad aspect of it, however I'm also thankful for clear video proof of more and more accidents these days (as eye witness accounts can be dramatically different depending on person.) Similar to black boxes on major airlines.

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15 minutes ago, wesley815 said:

I agree with the sad aspect of it, however I'm also thankful for clear video proof of more and more accidents these days (as eye witness accounts can be dramatically different depending on person.) Similar to black boxes on major airlines.

That I agree with but I just think it could also be handled differently with the person who took the video giving it to the friends there and authorities instead of rushing to social media to post it.

Just would never cross my mind to rush to social media to post something like this if I had been the one filming it. 

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5 hours ago, Invertalon said:

How is this not even close? Genuinely curious.

Other attractions, due to fault of restraint design much like this, have had incidents that have killed riders elsewhere that did not cause the closure of the entire park following... SROS at SFDL, SROS at SFNE, Perilous Plunge, New Texas Giant, Drop Zone, etc... The rides close for investigation, the parks do not.  

I don't see why in this case why it would be any different. Why do you?
 

Those parks all charge gate admission and have passholder bases, Icon Park is free to park, free to walk around.

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Maybe there should be a requirement for rides to have surveillance cams in the stations. It'd catch any operator errors and could be used for an investigation, but it'd be private video, so less like to make the rounds on Twitter.

And, yeah, Twitter is a nightmare. I posted a warning so that people who can't handle stuff like this don't accidentally see this video like I did, and while most of the responses were people thanking me, there are a few people who were... ugh. I woke up today to messages from some dude berating me for "putting attention on this tragic accident" and then another guy sending me a link to the video. Like, wow, y'all have no empathy whatsoever for others.

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