Giant Drop E-Stop

[Jamberoo Fan]

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Quote

Dreamworld reopens three more rides after Thunder River Rapids tragedy (Poeple dangling on Dreamworld ride hours after it reopened)

An automatic sensor is believed to have triggered a brief shutdown on a Dreamworld ride on the Gold Coast, with guests strapped into it.

Thrill-seekers were left dangling from the top of the 119m-tall Giant Drop for about five minutes after the sensor was tripped on Friday.

The east side of the Giant Drop at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast has reopened. Photo: Supplied

No fault was discovered and the ride was operating again after successful testing, a Dreamworld spokesman told AAP.

The incident came hours after the theme park announced the Giant Drop along with the Shockwave and Hot Wheels Sidewinder rides had been reopened to guests following a multi-level safety audit in the wake of the deaths of four people on the now-decommissioned Thunder River Rapids ride in October.

"The review included Workplace Health and Safety Queensland's audit, Dreamworld's internal engineering review, Pitt & Sherry's independent review and an external peer-review by UK based theme park safety specialists, LTC," a theme park spokesman said in a statement.

Wipeout was the last of the big nine thrill rides yet to reopen.

Dreamworld itself reopened in December, just six weeks after the October 25 disaster in which four adults were killed while on board the Thunder River Rapids ride.

[Flynn_Smith]

WHO CARES.

[themagician]

When driving home, I did see the east gondola had stopped almost half way up, and the lift for the west gondola at the top, and thought it just wasn't operating yet, but obviously was just a minor issue media and going blow out of proportion 

[Rollercoaster_Lover]

Are they still stuck and How will they get down?

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

they will make them jump^

 

[Reanimated35]

4 minutes ago, Rollercoaster_Lover❤️ said:

Are they still stuck and How will they get down?

That's actually half a good question. If you ignore the first part of your post that was already answered. 

 

How DO they evac GD?

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I would suggest they're down now since the article actually said ' No fault was discovered and the ride was operating again after successful testing ' and it said they were stuck for about 'five minutes'

On the intamin giant drop towers, the gondola is released from a catch in the catch car to freefall. If, for whatever reason the gondola can't be released, there is a manual control for the winch, and the gondola can be lowered slowly, still attached to the cable.

It really is no big deal whatsoever.

(I should add that they won't release the gondola from the catch car unless it has reached the top, and they won't, if it has gone into e-stop. The only way to bring them down after an e-stop is manual winch lowering - or at least that was the way with Space Probe. I assume the systems are fairly similar)

[Rollercoaster_Lover]

^Thx

and ok.

 

[Santa07]

9 minutes ago, Theme Park Ninja said:

they will make them jump^

 

Don't say that too loud or it might end up in the newspapers

Terrified Dreamworld guests forced to jump from several kilometres in the air when dilapidated theme park ride breaks down

[rappa]

6 minutes ago, AlexB said:

(I should add that they won't release the gondola from the catch car unless it has reached the top, and they won't, if it has gone into e-stop. The only way to bring them down after an e-stop is manual winch lowering - or at least that was the way with Space Probe. I assume the systems are fairly similar)

Actually there is a remote electrical backup system to drop the gondola from any height. It would be preferable to do this rather than evac should something prevent the winch lowering the catch car. 

Due to the nature of the braking system it's safe to drop from any height as braking force is proportionate to speed and does not require any power to operate. 

The only time you wouldn't want to drop the car is if for some reason the wire rope guides weren't retracted as that would be a bit messy. 

[Intimidator305.]

It's getting a little amusing at this point. When there is a big accident in the theme park industry, I expect the media to write stories on it, just as I would expect them to write stories on big car accidents. But I don't expect the media to write a story when a car breaks down, so I shouldn't expect the media to write a story when a ride breaks down.

[rappa]

See I actually kind of do expect them to. It's a very delicate issue right now in the eyes of the public. 

But what I DO expect is rather than blowing them out as 'near death' situations they actually educate the public on how it's not a big deal. Start to rebuild the publics trust in the parks. Especially from a local rag like the bully. 

Buf no because that sad excuse for a 'news' paper only cares about links to its new member only section or blatantly ripping off articles from Parkz. 

[bladex]

this is just getting ridiculous what's with all the breakdowns lately?

[themagician]

The rides are always breaking down, we just don't here about them all. What is getting rediculous is the amount of articles being written about them.

[Brad2912]

Dreamworld itself reopened in December, just six weeks after the October 25 disaster in which four adults were killed while on board the Thunder River Rapids ride.

It's this last sentence that REALLY pissed me off. 

The 'just 6 weeks' is a loaded statement implying the park opened too early.

and why do they need to mention that people were killed, every damn time! Say 'the Dreamworld incident/accident' but we don't need to keep being told how many people & which ride every time. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED!! 

Edited January 27, 2017 by Brad2912

[themagician]

In the news reports on TV and radio they keep saying the GD broke down just hours after reopening. NO, ITS BEEN OPEN FOR TWO DAYS NOW. They have also been saying that the HWSW and Shockwave also reopened today. NO, YOU ARE WRONG. Seriously, it's not that hard to get the facts right 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

8 minutes ago, bladex said:

this is just getting ridiculous what's with all the breakdowns lately?

not a day goes by without at least one of our parks having some sort of downtime. In this case it was all of five minutes. Most people waiting in the queue wouldn't have realised it had stopped for that amount of time (depending on queue length of course).

I guarantee that at least one computer in my office building needed to be reset today. Somewhere in the southeast, someone had to reboot their phone. Once a week my Foxtel box needs a hard reset. And just like magic - after a reboot, everything comes back online just as it's meant to, and everyone continues about their business.

This is the shit that the media is missing. As Rappa said - they should be encouraging education with these issues now, instead of likening every reset to a tragic accident that killed 4 people. If the parks die, it will be the fault of the media.... and although the gold coast has a lot to offer tourists, it wouldn't be the same drawcard without them - and it would seriously damage the rest of the coast.

7 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

It's this last sentence that REALLY pissed me off. 

The 'just 6 weeks' is a loaded statement implying the park opened too early.

and why do they need to mention that people were killed, every damn time! Say 'the Dreamworld incident/accident' but we don't need to keep being told how many people & which ride every time. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED!! 

We have this running joke in our household where the media ties it into Christmas - "blah blah happened 'just six weeks after christmas' - they tend to do it with anything that is family oriented and within a month or so of the date... substitute it for any other holiday or family gathering time and anything that has to do with the holiday itself - for example we've also heard:

just XX before Anzac Day - for things relating to diggers, or memorials. 

shits me to tears.

3 minutes ago, themagician said:

In the news reports on TV and radio they keep saying the GD broke down just hours after reopening. NO, ITS BEEN OPEN FOR TWO DAYS NOW. They have also been saying that the HWSW and Shockwave also reopened today. NO, YOU ARE WRONG. Seriously, it's not that hard to get the facts right 

Yeah I feel like they've just taken the opening time from a social media post or similar saying it's open - i've frequently logged onto facebook and found 'old news' presented as 'today' - it quickly refreshes, but I guess it depends on how long you linger on the post for it to update.

[Jamberoo Fan]

2 hours ago, djrappa said:

But what I DO expect is rather than blowing them out as 'near death' situations they actually educate the public on how it's not a big deal. Start to rebuild the publics trust in the parks.

Judging from this Facebook post, if the public are going to be educated on how safe theme parks really are by the media, maybe DW should lead this PR campaign by communicating with affected guests first?

[themagician]

I don't know the extent of how much the parks try to explain to guests who get stuck, or to the media when news does break out, but I do think the parks definitely should explain what's happened to riders if something does happen, so they have an understanding, so things like that post aren't made 

[GoGoBoy]

If anything these ride stoppages should be seen as a good thing at our parks, as long as they are within reason. It shows that the rides' sensors and control systems are responsive, and are ready to kick in and do their job as soon as they detect any operating anomaly. From what we know so far of the DW tragedy (and, of course, the investigation has not been released yet so can only speculate), it looks as though this is what didn't happen. I'd prefer ride systems to overreact rather than underreact in the interests of safety.

[joz]

I don't want this thread to devolve into a TRRR speculation thread, but I don't think that ride was designed to stop in the instance that there was a boat there.  I think it'll be one of these 'no one could have foreseen what happened so it wasn't engineered for' type of things.

[GoGoBoy]

28 minutes ago, joz said:

I don't want this thread to devolve into a TRRR speculation thread, but I don't think that ride was designed to stop in the instance that there was a boat there.  I think it'll be one of these 'no one could have foreseen what happened so it wasn't engineered for' type of things.

You might be right Joz. I just remember reading an article where an engineer suggested the accident may have been due to a faulty limit switch, ie. sensor. The suggestion was that the block system at that point of the ride shouldn't have allowed two rafts to close up on each other where they did if the limit switch had been working. But of course, we have virtually zero faith in the media when it comes to theme park reporting and the supposed experts they roll out, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Regardless, the point is that routine ride stoppages tell us that the rides' safety systems are doing what they're meant to do.

Edited January 27, 2017 by GoGoBoy

[Jamberoo Fan]

From Sky News:

Quote

Dreamworld has 'no concerns' over ride glitch

Dreamworld boss Craig Davidson has assured the theme park's patron's a glitch that left thrillseekers stranded on one of its most popular rides on Friday is nothing to worry about.

An automatic sensor is believed to have trigged the brief shutdown that left riders dangling at the top of the 119-metre Giant Drop for about five minutes on Friday, just hours after the ride's reopening.

But no fault was discovered and Mr Davidson said the incident showed the ride was operating as it should.

'There will always be glitches, we see that on any amusement park in the world and we're no different,' he told AAP on Saturday.

'That ride is doing exactly what it was supposed to do and we have no concerns about that whatsoever.'

Friday's incident drew unwanted headlines for the park, which is grappling with a sharp drop in visitor numbers following last year's Thunder River Rapids tragedy that killed four people.

The park was closed for weeks following the tragedy and the parks main rides, with the exception of the decommissioned Thunder River Rapids, have been reopening gradually after passing multi-level safety reviews.

Only one ride, the Wipeout, is yet to reopeon.

The tragedy has had a flow-on effect on the Gold Coast's other theme parks: Village Roadshow - which operates Movie World, Wet'n'Wild and Sea World - has reported a 12 per cent drop in attendance compared to a year ago.

[jake_hunt]

This news.com.au article is really making me laugh.

First off, "Friday's incident drew unwanted headlines for the park"... says the reporter whilst writing an unwanted headline for the park.

Secondly, they write an article which is LITERALLY no longer than about 200-300 words to say "a ride broke down at Dreamworld, but it's OK and the CEO says it's OK... THUNDER RIVER RAPIDS INCIDENT OH MY GOD."

They couldn't make it LESS obvious that they are desperate for headlines.

[joel]

On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 5:22 PM, Jamberoo Fan said:

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

The West Drop was stopped due to routine technical difficulties, however the East Drop was stopped half way up the tower due to maintenance men working on tower.

As you can also see from the picture the West Drop has no overhead restraints as they are currently using a green screen in the station for Dreamworld's latest ad / commercial.