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You can't expect a CEO to sign off on major upgrades if he doesn’t understand what a theme park is and how a theme park works. All you need is look at Craig Davidson history of employment to understand that he was not employed for his theme park knowledge. Various roles. (Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation) worked his way up. Resident Manager (Ayes Rock Resort) Assistant General Manager (Hamilton Island) Resort General Manager (Hamilton Island) Executive General Manager (Voyages Hotels) Executive General Manager (Hamilton Island) Chief Operating Officer (Anthogy) Chief Executive Officer(Anthlogy) (yes this is correct General Manager Destination Development (Tourism Australia) Chief Executive Officer (Ardent Themeparks) This is the hole that Ardent has dug. Ardent don’t believe it require years of knowledge and experience to run a theme park. Ardent running of DW reminds me of a scene out of the original Jurassic Park movie. Dr. Ian Malcolm: “If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now”. Ardent purchased a product they have no knowledge on. Ardent doesn’t employ a CEO who has theme park knowledge. Ardent employ a CEO who only knows how to sell the product. Ardent don’t know what keeps the product going. This is like going to my doctor and asking him if my car needs an oil change. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Proof what skeet says is true. Brock's Garage is out of place within DW. Fun Patrol, telling you to have fun is not fun. Remove steam trains for shitty diesel trains. Put a roof on a flume ride. MDMC, MDMC, MDMC Fill the park with cheap ass spin and spews. Does Skeet need to go on? All very bad non-theme park "knowledge" decisions. All these decision has destroyed the DW product but hey Ardent don't even know what product they are selling.

@themeparkaddict that's easy. This was taken at our Friday poker night.

Thing is something can pass (unless of course it's a Dreamworld safety audio 😛 ) and be bare minimum. Should we running things at bare minimum safety levels to save some dollars when standard industry practices are available at a much higher level? No way! It's very very clear here there were major KNOWN shortcomings in the design, modifications and control systems of that ride, and that even the high level staff seem to have confusion over what did what. That's not ok. The current employees are 100% on the Kool-Aid and have been coached that is clear. You simply CANNOT blame the 2 ride operators in any way for the simple fact that ride operators (no matter how senior as they are still low level front line employees) should never be put into a situation to make literal life or death decisions. The systems should be in place to take those decisions off them. They weren't. They modified the ride to remove the turntable - first thing that allowed the accident to happen They failed to put adequate steps in place to upgrade to a block type system - 2nd thing that allowed the accident to happen They added rails to stabilise the rafts if water dropped - 3rd thing They removed slats to grip the rafts better - 4th thing They removed an 'annoying' alarm - 5th thing They ignored recommendations to upgrade the controls - 6th thing etc etc etc Many of these things were band aid fixes to solve one problem whilst creating another. ANYONE who wants to defend the actions of Dreamworld management in light of all of these things simply is not bing objective I'm sorry.

Don't flatter yourself. It's called 'unread content' and it appears at the top right of the forums. When you click this link, it shows you everything in the forum you haven't read. I'm going to assume you didn't know this either, and if that's the case, this explains a lot about why you ask so many questions on topics that have already been answered - because you aren't reading all the topics. THis isn't having a go at you, this is me coming to more of an understanding as to why you appear to be so lazy - you're not lazy, you're just ignorant. Not an insult, just a truth - you didn't know. Anyway - I have far better things to do than 'stalk' someone. I read unread posts when I come here, and i respond if I feel so inclined. If i was stalking you, you'd know it.

Said CEO insisted Eureka Mountain would be good to reopen mere weeks before it was demolished.

Okay everyone, I know I wasn't able to make it today but I have compiled all the notes I took from yesterday and cleaned them up. As I mentioned, Ms Crisp completed a 3 hour walkthrough of the ride with QPS and WHS. 2 hours of this video was shown and i've added into the document some interesting things that I noticed while watching the walkthrough. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ayw6_NjtaBHoLiTlSBDNzXoQtiVORt8NTzrVIbsZFzI/edit?usp=sharing

They haven't rethemed Kevil. It's signage looms above trolls village like some sort of sick Pig-twisted empire. they've removed it off their website - but as yet, that means nothing.

They will. That has been confirmed. It will by all accounts be much better than the themeing that was there previously.

Surely they wouldn't get rid of an attraction, retheme a building, and expand an attraction that is only set to be in the park for a year though.

We can all wish. Note how your immediate reaction is to be snarky?

Indeed it was, however - flaw identified, big cost to fix (as well as hit to image)... it was in the vein of what was suggested. This is precisely one of the things i've been talking about. https://www.parkz.com.au/forums/topic/7706-scooby-doo-spooky-coaster-refurb-in-novdec-2017/ Clearly you've seen it now, but perhaps when someone references an event like that so casually, assume it's been discussed in detail, and try and do a little searching before blurting out the question? Anyhow - big thanks to @jdude for efforts so far, hope you don't miss the screening of the CCTV, hope you can record it when it's shown, and looking forward to your reports tomorrow!

HAHAHA! I'm sorry guys. I was having car troubles today and by the time I got it sorted, I would have only got the last hour or two of the day so I figured it wasn't worth the drive. Don't worry, I will be back at the inquest tomorrow and live posting!

What’s your point? Up until the Dreamworld inquest I hadn’t been active on this forum in quite a while I admit it certainly does take the atmosphere and creativity away from the ride. Hopefully they add theming back in in this new maintenance downtime

Thats dreamworld in general really

It's rather dull to be honest, at least when you have ridden it with the theming.

My understanding is the set builds were found to be a fire hazard or in breach of an updated fire code, hence their hastily removal

That was when the themeing was removed

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has noticed that there has been a “turn” in the narrative & story since the witnesses who continue to work for DW take the stand. It reeks to me of DW’s lawyers trying to shift the entire blame to the 2 operators. Well I’m sorry but that doesn’t fly with me at all. The senior ride Manager believes the e-stop wasn’t pressed at all ? Did the police investigator not give timings for when it was pushed in terms of reaction time to the incident just last week?

That ride was a ticking time bomb. It doesn't even take someone educated in control systems, human machine interfaces or ergonomics to see how fatally flawed that cluster f&ck of a control system was!

For people trying to picture the distance from the unload to @joelE-Stop. I have circled it in red.

I think that is a very hard line to take, and I would argue - inappropriate at best. The 57 second timeline, from what I have read, is the time from the pump failure, until the time the raft flipped. I've seen this style of ride in startup and shutdown, although i've never seen one operating on half it's pumps. I can imagine, given the time it takes the water level to drop in a total shutdown, that the shutdown of only one pump would make the water level drop a much less significant observation. Basically, with all the water rushing through the station area, guest communications, and mechanical noises, It is doubtful that one pump stopping would be all that noticeable immediately, both from a mechanical noise perspective, as well as a water level perspective AT THE TIME (ie: timeline 0:00) Also from what we have heard, the main operator panel has no visibility to the unload area, and had no responsibility for that area, which is why there was a separate unload operator. (In later years, Wonderland's snowy could be operated by a single operator using CCTV, with load and unload taking place on either side of the control booth). It is unfair to be making statements that 'either operator had 57 seconds' to prevent this. Or that they will have to 'live with that'. Yes, at some point before hand, the water level could have been noticed, the stalled raft at unload could have been noticed - in fact, in both cases, SHOULD Have been noticed - however this doesn't pin it on the operator. For all we've heard so far, Dreamworld's policies, dreamworld's training, and dreamworld's ignorance of previous recommendations brought this about, and in reality, nothing the operators could have done would have saved people by the time it became apparent. Even the stalled raft may not have appeared 'stuck' but only 'not moving yet' and it may well have been practice on the ride to allow the next raft to 'bump' it along - so even at THAT point, mere seconds before the flip, the unload operator may have not perceived anything wrong, because of the practice of the park's policies. TL:DR - with everything we have heard, it is not appropriate nor fair to pin the loss of these four lives on an operator, or to suggest that they had almost a full minute to perceive and react to save them. The park's culture appears to have taught them that everything was normal, and only when the raft lifted into the air would they have seen a problem worthy of e-stop, which by then would have been too late.

Quality work again by GCB, they have a timeline of all the events, here is a couple of the “events”... hmm, anyone spot the problem?

Thanks for the summary @Roachie - these two points have me a little intrigued. I'm first wondering whether the 'confusing' label is that applied to it by investigators, or by qualified and experienced operators. Ie: were the people trained to operate it saying the panel was confusing? Or just a layperson? I'm sure many rides around the world would appear confusing to someone not trained on it... and I can't really imagine an experienced operator finding a panel confusing so i'm just trying to figure it out in my head. WRT the 'two' e-stops, my understanding is the main e-stop was an 'all stop' - so cut power to pumps etc, and for that reason, seven seconds sounds like the time it takes the water levels to drop within the station area. The 'second' (although apparently not marked in this way) was only a stop button for the conveyor - water continued to flow if this was pressed. If my understanding is correct, then the instructions 'not to use' and 'nobody uses that' kind of make sense. In an emergency, you would want an 'all stop' not just a 'stop the conveyor' so it does kind of make sense in most scenarios. At the end of the day its starting to sound much worse than we had thought out at Dreamworld, and I think the best outcome here for all is for the inquest to end with an outcome, for that outcome to absolutely crucify Ardent and it's operations, and for the park to be on-sold to an operator with an exemplary record to re-start everything from scratch.

Here's what we know so far - feel free to comment and i'll make edits where possible. a similar incident occurred in 2001 with no one on-board, was put down to operator error, no modifications were made and emergency response training was instead increased operating the ride was difficult, noting that operators "must perform numerous tasks simultaneously, many of which are cognitively draining." Ride's e-stop button was "totally un-marked" and the main control panel was "confusing" The main e-stop button would take seven seconds to stop the ride & the second e-stop button could have shut down the ride in two seconds Operators were told "not to worry about that button (the second e-stop) [because] no one uses it." A memo was sent to staff less than a week before the incident advising only to use the second e-stop button if the "main control panel cannot be reached" to prevent "false alarms." "Button" on the unload platform stops conveyor belt, but staff were told not to worry about it Nothing beyond a scum line was used to measure water levels (no electronic indicators or a depth ruler) - rafts getting stuck were another sign Dreamworld's safety compliance rate in 2016 was nearly half (41.7%) of the 75% that is considered to be compliant The same pump that failed had an "earth fault" twice that morning that caused the pump to stop and had tripped on October 19, 2016 and was scheduled to be checked on October 27. Police were never able to replicate the incident with or without dummies With thanks to journalists Lea Emery from GCB and Alexandria Utting from CM for the live coverage so far.

They are just getting facts from all angles. I dont think anyone's trying to shift any blame they will do this with everyone at all levels in this same way. Its just how courts work. I was once a witness to an armed hold up and had to go to court a few times and was grilled on the most ridiculous aspects of the robbery to the point I felt like I was on trial for the crime and liar and yet I was a victim and innocent bystander just giving facts. Its just how courts work.