Thunder River Rapids Incident Coronial Inquest

[New display name]

6 minutes ago, webslave said:

Stuff like this is rarely the fault of one person or group, be it management nor the ride ops.

Except for the case where DW management have clearly shown how how shit they are.

MISSING conveyor slats, excessive corrosion, crumbling concrete. WHSQ report found the doomed Thunder River Rapids should never have been operating at the time of the tragedy.

[Jdude95]

I had a feeling JAK would be unresponsive to coroner requests. They were in charge of the structural and mechanical inspections but were found to be cutting corners. It's not just that they are a dodgy audit company, it's that Dreamworld Management also knew they were a dodgy audit company and did nothing.

[New display name]

Is JAK still trading @Jdude95?

[Levithian]

5 hours ago, webslave said:

Personally, I think the test should be whether you knew - or should have known - that the decision you made materially increased the risk of serious injury or death occurring.

Ergo;

• If you were denied the funding to complete an upgrade to safety/control components then the decision was not yours, therefore you are not culpable.
• Allowing a ride to return to operation several times following an intermittent fault may not make you culpable if you could demonstrate that you were unaware that doing so materially increased the risk of serious injury or death occurring (which would be a fairly high bar, but how many of us before now would have linked a pump failure with an accident like this? After all, as far as we were aware it's never happened in all the years of operation)
• If you knew the state of the safety infrastructure on a ride was deficient and knew this deficiency increased the risk of serious injury or death but either neglected to report it or down-played the risk when reporting it you are culpable.

The company, as they testified at the inquest, has a policy in place that the ride pumps were not to be restarted multiple times. They also testified how important water levels are from a safety standpoint. Not only that, but they also testified that they knew there was a problem with the pumps and had an expert tasked with coming to inspect them. On top of that, they knew the age of the units too, and had a history of faults occurring during the month leading up to the deaths.

So even after experts have testified they had very, very poor documentation or procedures in place, what poor practices they thought they should adhere to, were ignored by managers anyway. Given the history and the fact that you thought it frequent enough to have an external company come to inspect/repair them, if you continually had faults after the fact the proper decision was to close the ride until the problem could be rectified.

Opening it, knowing all this is negligence. Even if for a moment you could prove the operators didnt shut the ride down properly. The park is still negligent for returning it to service multiple times creating the situation in the first place.

 

12 minutes ago, Skeeta said:

Is JAK still trading @Jdude95?

if they are based overseas, even if they are, a judgement handed down against them in australia would basically prohibit them from trading in the country again under threat of staff being arrested at the airport, BUT if you actually wanted anything out of them you would have to file a motion in the court based in their home territory and probably have it go to trial. So you'd have to fight another legal battle in another country under their system/rules, which means all the testimony, all the witnesses, etc would probably have to be presented again.

So thats probably not going to happen, but it would be nice if they were effectively blocked from providing services within the country.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Levithian

[New display name]

@LevithianThat's not what I was asking.

[Jdude95]

I've been trying to locate details on JAK. I'm not sure if THIS is the correct company but it's the only company under the name of JAK that works in construction. Their website states that they are based in Doha, Qatar. I found the company on Linkedin but it says they are based in Illinois and have a link that leads back to the same website as before. If this is the same company, they are still in business but it seems that they may have moved their office or they are trying to not be so public after the shit hit the fan at DW

[Levithian]

3 minutes ago, Skeeta said:

@LevithianThat's not what I was asking.

And my reply is basically saying if they are, the direct fallout, other than word of mouth/reputation is pretty much nill anyway.

[Jdude95]

That still didn't answer the only question he had. It was just a bunch of information based off assumptions.

[New display name]

I believe the Director is Dennis Gilbert who I also believe was a director of Dubai Park & Resort at the same time Bob Tan went to work for Dubai Park & Resort in 2016.

[Levithian]

10 minutes ago, Jdude95 said:

I've been trying to locate details on JAK. I'm not sure if THIS is the correct company but it's the only company under the name of JAK that works in construction. Their website states that they are based in Doha, Qatar. I found the company on Linkedin but it says they are based in Illinois and have a link that leads back to the same website as before. If this is the same company, they are still in business but it seems that they may have moved their office or they are trying to not be so public after the shit hit the fan at DW

When you lookup the name registra for the website you listed, their domain name servers point to ones based in Qatar (W3QATAR.NET) too.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Levithian

[Jdude95]

If DW were working closely with JAK, that could explain how Bob got sent to Doha. JAK must have had a very close relationship with DW so that when they decided to get rid of Bob, they were able to pull some strings with JAK and send him into another job instead of risking him spilling the beans about the park if they fired him. Would also explain how JAK were doing dodgy audits for so long.

Qatar is a massively developing country, it's the new Dubai in terms of development so a lot of companies are picking up and moving operations to over there. That could be why JAK are now based over there, it could have been something that was planning for a while. Or they realised what happened at DW and ran off to hide in the middle east where there a load of internal contracts without having to work on an international scale.

[New display name]

The only problem with that theory is Bob started working for Dubai Park & Resort 8 months before it happened.

[Jdude95]

Bob was fired before bodies hit the conveyor at DW. He left in early 2016/late 2015

[New display name]

Is Bob on the list of witnesses for the inquest?

[Jdude95]

I don't believe so. If he was to be called up, it would most likely occur during this two week hearing and I haven't heard his name in the upcoming witness list.

[Brad2912]

A LEADING safety inspector has told an inquest he could have written dozens of improvement notices for the doomed Thunder River Rapids ride if it had continued to operate after the 2016 tragedy.

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s principal inspector Ian Stewart wrote a prohibition notice for the ride during his investigation into the tragedy.

However, he said he discovered so many concerns he could have written at least 80 improvement notices if the ride had still been operating.

The ride was shut down after the accident and never operated again.

He also said he had “no confidence at all in what Dreamworld had in place to save lives” if people fell in to the water on the ride.

 

[joz]

[Jdude95]

The amount of times i've heard the word "hindsight" during this inquest is ridiculous.

Also, I'm dealing with Government fuckery tomorrow but I will be back and updating as usual on Wednesday for the last 3 days of this hearing.

[joz]

Get back there, the coverage has been awful

 

It's actually kind of interesting in itself; so much awful stuff has come out that DW seem to have maxed out the amount of bad press they can get. It's kind of like winning a fight by beating yourself to a pulp and making the enemy take pity on what a pathetic bloody mess you are.

[Brad2912]

Yep... the media is only interested in it if it’s shocking, drama filled or controversial. I think all those descriptions are pretty much maxed out to the point when hearing “it’s pretty obvious the ride was a death trap just waiting to happen and nothing was done about it despite it appearing that everyone was aware of this fact” no longer even raises an eyebrow... 

[rappa]

I just really think the glaring thing is THE SAME PEOPLE ARE STILL IN CHARGE OF THE PARK!

Attitudes don't just change, so you know they will be doing the bare minimum they have to in regards to any improvements. 

I don't care if they built a 300 foot giga coaster tomorrow, there is still no way I would set foot on any moving piece of machinery in that place.

 

[New display name]

36 minutes ago, djrappa said:

THE SAME PEOPLE ARE STILL IN CHARGE OF THE PARK!

Some of the same people have been promoted too. 

 

And the ones that left are now your local mechanics.

 

[Brad2912]

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s chief safety engineer Michael Chan told Coroner James McDougall the industry regulator had never received any notification from Dreamworld about any modifications as part of the design registration process.

The ride’s design was first registered in August 1987, but the ride was modified many times in the years that followed.

Crucially, at some time in the late 1980s, two out of every three slats on the conveyor belt were removed, which Mr Tan said made the ride ‘even more hazardous’.

“You have introduced a hazard ... that alteration should have been notified,” he said.

—————————————————————

surely since the “late 1980s” someone from WHS actually visited the park and said “you didn’t notify us of this, it’s not safe, fix it?

—————————————————————

Dreamworld executives asked Workplace Health and Safety Queensland to exempt them from engaging professional ride registration engineers just months before the Thunder River Rapids tragedy, an inquest has been told.

WHSQ’s chief safety engineer Michael Chan said he met with Dreamworld department heads in August 2016 where they proposed bypassing legal registration requirements because the park ‘has implemented an effective in-house maintenance and inspection system’.

Mr Chan refused the request, explaining it was a legal requirement to engage “a suitably qualified and experienced person” to perform an annual inspection.

“(It’s not the case that) just because you have a system in place you’re good to go,” he said.

———————————————————————

anyone associated with that “request” should be banned from being involved with theme parks for the rest of their lives.. if it wasn’t so ridiculous and concerning it would be laughable 

 

[New display name]

13 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s chief safety engineer Michael Chan told Coroner James McDougall the industry regulator had never received any notification from Dreamworld about any modifications as part of the design registration process.

The ride’s design was first registered in August 1987, but the ride was modified many times in the years that followed.

Crucially, at some time in the late 1980s, two out of every three slats on the conveyor belt were removed, which Mr Tan said made the ride ‘even more hazardous’.

“You have introduced a hazard ... that alteration should have been notified,” he said.

—————————————————————

surely since the “late 1980s” someone from WHS actually visited the park and said “you didn’t notify us of this, it’s not safe, fix it?

—————————————————————

Dreamworld executives asked Workplace Health and Safety Queensland to exempt them from engaging professional ride registration engineers just months before the Thunder River Rapids tragedy, an inquest has been told.

WHSQ’s chief safety engineer Michael Chan said he met with Dreamworld department heads in August 2016 where they proposed bypassing legal registration requirements because the park ‘has implemented an effective in-house maintenance and inspection system’.

Mr Chan refused the request, explaining it was a legal requirement to engage “a suitably qualified and experienced person” to perform an annual inspection.

“(It’s not the case that) just because you have a system in place you’re good to go,” he said.

———————————————————————

anyone associated with that “request” should be banned from being involved with theme parks for the rest of their lives.. if it wasn’t so ridiculous and concerning it would be laughable 

 

Makes one wonder what do WHSQ inspectors inspect when they inspect?

Makes one wonder does WHSQ enter the theme parks?

Makes one wonder what is the point of of WHSQ?

[Levithian]

Engineering and Construction

Electrical

General Safety (everything from railing heights to trip hazards).

Usually end up with inspectors from each of those disciplines turn up on site and physically inspect the site, but also go through your plans, proceedures and associated paperwork. Imagine its similar when they go to something like a theme park instead of a building site.

 

Edited November 20, 2018 by Levithian