[cwgator]

Alton Towers Accident: Four Seriously Injured On The Smiler Ride

Two air ambulances have arrived at the scene and visitors are being cut out of their seats

Four people have been seriously injured in a collision between two carriages on Alton Towers amusement park's Smiler rollercoaster.

The collision involved 16 guests, with the carriages coming together on a low section of the track.

An air ambulance has arrived on the scene to deal with potential casualties.

Yahoo News spoke to witness Kirsty Wild, 20, from Barnsley.

Kirsty, who has been going to Alton Towers with her mum for 15 years, said two empty carts on the ride's tracks had been put into operation while she was queuing for the ride, along with two carts full of visitors.

She said: "I heard a very big bang... then there was a lot of panic."

She said when she looked up at the ride one of the carts was swinging back up one of the loops of the rollercoaster from the impact of an apparent collision. "People on the two carts were crying", she said.
She added that a man was covered in blood, 'probably from a broken nose'.

Eyewitnesses to the incident at the theme park in Staffordshire described how they saw people with “crushed” faces.

Kitkatnic tweeted: “Can you let us know those people are okay, I saw it happen it was terrifying - that poor guy with his face smashed in!”

Rich_J_Boot added: “The cars on an angle at the bottom and some people were hanging to the side.”

Visitors to Alton Towers reported on social media that the ride had broken down earlier today.

Lucy Farrugia said: "Smiler broke down when I was on it this morning and now it's crashed. Hope everyone on it is OK, saw the air ambulance arrive."

An Alton Towers spokeswoman said: "The resort's fully qualified first responders were on the scene immediately to assist with the evacuation which is ongoing, and the area has been closed to allow for access to emergency services vehicles.

"To ensure the safe and timely evacuation of guests a platform is being constructed. This will take a few minutes but will enable us to proceed more quickly.

"There will be a full investigation once we have recovered the guests who are our priority."

The Smiler opened in May 2013 and is billed as the world's first 14 loop rollercoaster.

It holds the official Guinness World Record for most loops in a rollercoaster, according to the Alton Towers website.

[Jonathan]

This ride is such a piece of garbage. And to think they sacrificed building the cross-valley woodie for this.

Random speculation, which is probably not very helpful but here goes: The empty train valleyed (which there is plenty of precedent for on this ride and it looks like this happened in the spot where it has valleyed previously) and either the blocking system failed and the next train (with passengers) was sent through the block without the train before it clearing (seems unlikely), OR a block sensor was improperly placed in a position (such as the apex of a hill) where the train could clear the block but still roll back into it after it had cleared. I'm not aware of any rides that allow ride ops to override the blocking system (that would be insane), so this is almost certainly a control system failure. Peace out Gerstlauer.

[ColetD]

Hopefully everyone recovers and there wasn't any severe injuries.
This doesn't have anything to do with the article, but the pictures make it look like this ride is a big mangled mess of metal. Maybe it doesn't look that way in person, but still.. it looks terrible from a visual standpoint.

[RollerBee]

What type of Gerstlauer coaster is this, Eurofighter? Jonathan's theory is the only reason I could see for causing this accident(maintenance at Carowinds can override the block system but ride ops can't.). Is it just me or does this coaster seem to be having lots of problems.

[tarheel1231]

^ It's an infinity. I don't think the model is unsafe because I don't hear stories about Karacho. Maybe this one is at fault for being a prototype.

[Jonathan]

What type of Gerstlauer coaster is this, Eurofighter? Jonathan's theory is the only reason I could see for causing this accident(maintenance at Carowinds can override the block system but ride ops can't.). Is it just me or does this coaster seem to be having lots of problems.

The part in bold maybe being key here. Apparently the ride went down right before this happened and the train that valleyed was an empty train sent out as a test. Maintenance may very well have been in control of the ride and could have had it in some mode where the blocking system was disabled. The big problem then was that they didn't wait for the empty train to complete the circuit before sending one out with riders on board. At least no one was killed.

[kirkgun]

Yikes. Four people seriously injured. "Crushed faces" could just be broken noses (broken noses bleed like mad), or eye-witnesses in shock and being overly dramatic. But that really gives worries for there being brain injuries. This really sucks. Let us all hope for the best for these people. This is awful.

I found this story somewhere else first, and then came here to see if you Carowinds fanatics had heard it yet.

There were loaded trains and empty trains on the track at the same time. Eye-witnesses saying that two trains were in operation and two more being put into operation. That's gotta mean that the ride was in a maintenance mode to transfer the empty trains onto the track. The ride had issues earlier in the day. I think Johnathan is certainly right. Somebody in maintenance probably screwed up. And I don't know anything about this ride's maintenance issues of valleying empty trains (I have heard some cosmetic theming pieces have fallen off). But if they had valleying problems in that spot before, I think they'd have discovered bad sensor placements in the past. Well, I'm sure we'll all hear what really happened at some point.

Fury went down for 15-20 minutes yesterday. I was on the train in the station and had to unload and wait at the bottom of the exit stairs. Maintenance did their thing (and zero people were allowed near the trains while they reset and ran tests). Then they went back to working on the train that was out of operation yesterday (they were only running two). I think it was just that a few kids started freaking out as the train started rolling (moved about 6 inches) and one of the ops decided to let up on his button, just to be extra cautious. Despite the the inconvenience, I really thought all the staff did a top notch job of ensuring rider safety. Of course this was long before I read this story this morning.

[Axel]

BBC story with pics & vids...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32980354

[chknwing]

what happens next? people will avoid that coaster like the plague after a crash.

[RollerBee]

RollerCoaster Tycoon....
Brakes Failure.....
Train blows up and....
The peeps are scared to death to ride it.

[iBiscuit]

It appears that riders in the front row had crush type injuries to their legs from the collision. I read on the BBC this morning that one person had a leg medically amputated below the knee yesterday. Very sad news.

[chknwing]

According to the report on The Telegraph, the park’s management is said to be considering “scrapping” the troubled coaster following the incident.

[intaminboy]

A while back a guide wheel fell of on this ride during operation and then the New Texas Giant trains failing and now this. What park is going to want to buy from Gerstlauer after all these incidents?

[Chris]

^A lift chain wheel fell off.
The ride is likely perfectly fine. I wish there was a way they could sell it to another park but that wouldn't fly too well in this social media world we live in.

[intaminboy]

From what I recall, screamscape reported a guide wheel flew off, but as always, Lance could be wrong.