Accident on Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley Shenzhen

[cookie]

Apparently one of the trains rolled back after the launch and failed to engage with the anti-rollback brakes hard enough, causing it to collide with another train parked behind the station. Reports go around of 8 people with serious injuries, but their conditions appear to be stable.

15K views · 1.2K likes | Coaster Hub on Instagram: "Today, an incident occurred on Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley in Shenzhen, China. This S&S Compressed Air Launch coaster opened in 2012 and was cloned as a mirror at Happy Valley in Wuhan. The incid

1,289 likes, 44 comments - coasterhub on October 27, 2023: "Today, an incident occurred on Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley in Shenzhen, China. This S&S Compressed Air Launch coaster opened in 2012 a..."

www.instagram.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/rollercoasters/comments/17hrk2i

 

[gavin]

The most shocking part of this is that a Happy Valley park was running more than one train.

 

[Hixee]

The most shocking part of this is that a Happy Valley park was running more than one train.

I suppose one thing we can be sure of - they never will again...

 

[gavin]

I was at their Nanjing park yesterday, and Light of Revenge (Cheetah Hunt clone) was closed even though the website had it as open.

I'm going to hazard a guess that it's because of this accident even though "having a launch" is the only thing remotely similar.

I'm about to head to a park with another launched coaster (Vekoma this time), so I'm hoping this hasn't become a "China" thing.

 

[roomraider]

The accident report has been released. Seems it was an issue miss alignment of the brake fins on the launch track. This caused the reversing train to smash into them and tear them from their mounts.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1744184279217889511

From my own reading of the news recently it seems a third party was brought in around June/July to do a full inspection of the ride.
Which begs the question how did such a serious accident happen so shortly after really.

 

[hersheyfan410]

 

[ECG]

Update - An investigation team of members from various government departments identified three key figures responsible for the tragedy, resulting in legal charges against those individuals and administrative penalties for nine others. The manager of Shenzhen Happy Valley surnamed Yue; the manager of the amusement park's equipment department surnamed Liu; and Zhou, the project technical leader of Runchang Corp, the maintenance firm, will face legal repercussions.
They are accused of failing to uphold safety management standards and neglecting equipment maintenance while being responsible for design and construction flaws in the roller coaster itself. In contrast, nine government officials responsible for the accident received administrative sanctions.
The report released by the Shenzhen city government found that the accident was mainly caused by poor equipment maintenance. A jaded bolt in the braking system snapped. This failure disabled the braking system, leading the coaster train to slide back down and hit the other.
The accident caused direct economic losses of 3.975 million yuan ($560,000), with 28 people taken to hospital, including three people severely injured and seven with minor injuries.
The report also highlighted several underlying issues when dealing with the tragedy.
The initial reports about the incident were inaccurate and contained discrepancies. The public was not promptly informed about the full extent of the situation. It said that relevant government departments failed to conduct thorough investigations of potential safety hazards before the accident.
Shenzhen Happy Valley Park has remained closed since the incident, with no confirmed date for reopening. Source

 

[gavin]

That's very China: arrest a handful of individuals extremely quickly in order to be seen to be doing something to protect the people.