Accident at Alton Towers

[owentaylor121]

Man in the front looks very bad.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

From what I can establish:

- Ride has broken down
- Trains are cycled empty to test, operator/manager/engineer agree to reopen
- Train valleys
- Train behind is dispatched at this time, unfortunately by the time the valley has been noticed they are unable to prevent the train from continuing. Presumably because the system hasn't registered that the trains are not in the right place and has allowed the ride to continue
- Crash

 

[Mysterious Sue]

So that, in fact, implies human error because the system hadn't finished being reset (so couldn't be guaranteed to know the location of all the trains)?

 

[Smithy]

Bit misleading to take any sort of information about conditions of those involved just from a still picture tbh Owen.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

So that, in fact, implies human error because the system hadn't finished being reset

It could be a mixture of both, but the ride op should be able to safely assume that the ride's system is always correct...

Ride system should've automagically stopped the train on the lift hill, but it didn't...

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Some people are reporting that the second train stopped on the lift hill and then started again. Not sure if this is true.

 

[cjbrandy]

Holy **** this is **** horrific. If I was one of those passengers I'd be terrified, I hope the injured make a full recovery asap. This may be the end of The Smiler.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Absolutely awful and I hope everyone involved who is injured makes a full and speedy recovery.

I don't have anything to add, everything's been said but Sky News are saying the ones injured have serious leg injuries...they even said they'd heard a rumour someone had died but I honestly reckon that needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt...a lump if you will. I'm sure that's false.

Also the knob heads moaning how the smiler being closed on twitter need to **** right off. ****.

 

[owentaylor121]

Bit misleading to take any sort of information about conditions of those involved just from a still picture tbh Owen.

You can clearly see he is knocked out and I said he looked bad, not that he is bad.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

There's a zoomed in photo (on ITV twitter I think) of that poor chap in the front covered in blood. I won't post it here (and of course, it might be false). But I bet the right hand side of the train in that image would have hit marginally earlier and taken the brunt of it.

 

[william]

http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/02/air-a...ash-involving-16-people-5226837/?ito=facebook

Some more pictures from the metro.

 

[cjbrandy]

The public's trust of the ride was already lowered by the falling bolts incident but now it will plummet after this awful accident. I reckon it might struggle to pull a queue when it reopens.

 

[elephant58]

If anything major happens to the ride itself, I think it'll be than only one train was run at a time.....but this is an awful accident, even worse if it was caused by human error.

 

[Smithy]

Some people are reporting that the second train stopped on the lift hill and then started again. Not sure if this is true.

Yeah I've seen a picture of the train just about to crest the first lift but then also seen one of them evacuating a train halfway up it so idk if they're old pictures or not.

Bit misleading to take any sort of information about conditions of those involved just from a still picture tbh Owen.

You can clearly see he is knocked out and I said he looked bad, not that he is bad.

You do understand how a picture works, right? That it's, you know, of a specific moment of time. And just because he's got his head down doesn't mean he's clearly knocked out. I've had ORP's where I've looked knocked out ffs.

 

[Jordanovichy]

What i said, as I knew it would be was bull ****. BBC have spoken to someone from the west midlands ambulance service and all 4 are concious so yeah. That's a blessing at least.

 

[owentaylor121]

^His arm is hanging over the side of the train and it was reported he was unconscious. I wouldn't have just said it for no reason...

 

[Dubaidave]

My thoughts are with those who have been injured. Just remember these things hardly ever happen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DelPiero]

The more I read about the 2nd train being held at the top of the lift the more this worries me.
Surely if it was waiting for the initial train to trigger the sensor to release the 2nd train it would have just stayed there. The only 2 things I could think of which would release it would be a sensor error(why would it wait though) or a manual override, and there's no way any op would manually override without checking the full track for obstructions.

 

[Jordanovichy]

I think there's going to be footage. BBC have shown some footage of the valleyed train and tthe train going over the top of the lift hill. Not broadcasting the actual crash for obvious reasons. It shows it being held.

 

[william]

The more I read about the 2nd train being held at the top of the lift the more this worries me.
Surely if it was waiting for the initial train to trigger the sensor to release the 2nd train it would have just stayed there. The only 2 things I could think of which would release it would be a sensor error(why would it wait though) or a manual override, and there's no way any op would manually override without checking the full track for obstructions.

I neither know the timescale or block layout of smiler, but could the first car had cleared the block section triggering the second car to be released into the block section and then first car rolled back in to same block section.