There have been actual cases where riders were killed due to negligence on the part of the theme park.
One was a woman who fell out of a rollercoaster at Six Flags Texas.
https://web.archive.org/web/2016030...-incident-texas-giant-said-to-be-involved.ece
There was the boy who was decapitated by a water slide.
https://people.howstuffworks.com/caleb-schwab-info.htm
And of course the Icon Park accident
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/o...adjustments-to-tyre-sampsons-seat-report-says
Let's talk about these cases. We'll go with Icon first, because this was the most obvious case of negligence. The restraints were adjusted beyond what the manufacturer specified to allow for larger guests to ride. The manufacturer clearly designed the restraints to lock, and if they didn't, there was the potential for this to happen. Some rides/rollercoasters have seats that are larger to accommodate larger guests (Bolliger and Mabillard inverted coasters, for instance); however, this was not the case. They ultimately took this ride down.
Schlitterbahn - Oh, this case. This ride was not designed by actual engineers. The guy who came up with it set out to break a world record without knowing enough about ride safety to actually be qualified to design a ride. He kept tearing down and redoing the ride in hopes it would work. That ride was never safe.
Six Flags Texas - This is another clear cut case of a restraint not being correct as the woman did not hear her restraint latch three times as with other guests. The interesting thing about this case, though, is that this happened in 2013, and guess what? This ride operates to this day without incident. In fact, there are many similar RMC models operating. They closed the ride and changed the restraints. Should the woman's family still file suit? Absolutely, park was still at fault. But it still is now safe to ride.
Now we go to this ride. This is a launched rollercoaster designed by Mack rides. Mack rides has close to 200 ride installations around the world. This is not the first multi launch rollercoaster that they have designed either. It's the first dueling one, and it's one of the longest, but the ride system isn't a prototype (think Cosmic Rewind which is the only omnicoaster in existence at this point). The design is not only designed by experts, but it is a tried and true design at this point.
Now we come to this incident. We have a rollercoaster which is very intense. It has multiple launches, drops, and an inversion. That is going to cause changes in g-forces. Not only will you get the positive g-forces from the launch, inversion, and turns, but then you get the negative g-forces from the drops (air time). That's a lot of changes to g-forces on your body. A healthy individual can easily tolerate that, however. We know in this case that this individual had a known spinal issue. The family has said that it was not a contributing factor, but when you have g-forces like this on a spine that's not 100% healthy, you are taking that risk.
We also have three separate investigations into this ride: Universal, Mack Rides and the state of Florida. All three investigations have concluded that ride systems operated as intended, the park staff followed safety protocols, and that the ride was safe to reopen.
There is no reason for this ride to remain closed. None.
Incidentally, five people have died on Space Mountain, and there were 337 reports of injuries and illnesses within the first ten months of it opening. Last I checked, it's still operating 50 years later.
