News Guest dies, found unresponsive after riding Stardust Racers

[disneylandtour]

Universal let him ride. You can't just throw up your hands and blame it on his "atypical anatomy." It doesn't work that way. We also don't even know precisely what role the restraint played or didn't play in the tragedy.

Agreed. I see little possibility where this is not legally universal's fault. There are similar coasters, similar restraints, etc. at other parks. So something failed with the restraints; OR team members missed something when loading; OR the design of this particular track course put unique stress on the restraint system or created a movement pattern in which his body type was not fully protected by the system (even though he appears to have met posted requirements), OR there was a manufacturing or maintenance flaw in this particular seating compartment, OR something else failed with the coaster train, such as a loose piece of metal or other decoration. For multiple blunt force injuries, I can't think of anything beyond that that would match this situation. There's clearly security video of the ride in motion (I'm sure universal management has scrutinized it), so if the cause was something that placed the guest at fault or partially at fault (smuggled on phone, stick, etc.), I can't imaged that universal wouldn't have made that part of the public set of releases by this point. When a guest died on Big Thunder, back in 2003 (in California, not Florida), that coaster was down for over a half year. The cause: poor maintenance. I'm guessing we'll see some similar timeline here. Again, that's only based on a previous incident in California and admittedly laws and requirements in California are more strict than in Florida.

Beyond the personal tragedy, which is significant--I don't want to take away from that--I think that at this point universal has no effective way to promote this new park. This was all over the news and socials--plenty of non-Disney friends asked me about it this week. They also openly speculated about the safety of other extreme coasters at Uni. In terms of ops this also just wiped out 2,500, give or take, of hourly capacity from a park that was already plagued with long lines. But again, the focus here shouldn't be on the business but on the family and on safety. I do think that universal in his public press releases has done a good job at keeping the focus there.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Not to take away from the tragedy at all - but this is another reason not to under-build a theme park. Things happen.

 

[Andrew C]

Not to take away from the tragedy at all - but this is another reason not to under-build a theme park. Things happen.

Underbuilt? 3 of the 4 parks at Disney world are underbuilt

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Underbuilt? 3 of the 4 parks at Disney world are underbuilt

Well…. 2 of the 4. But yes.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I’m guessing the ones at Paris are different then?

The ones in Paris seem to work well and solved some issues correct?

The ones in Paris are the decorative ones.

Ice Breaker is a Premier Rides coaster, not a Vekoma.

 

[disneylandtour]

These all read to me as the restraints being unsafe/unfit to be used as a result of this one incident (when not directly mentioning the restraints, the surrounding conversation was about the restraints), even if it isn’t in those exact words. One poster even suggested this might need to result in changes for many rides using this restraint system. A freak accident occurred and that’s horrible, but to throw a 16+yr safety record out the window (including coasters nearly/just as intense using this and similar restraint systems) over it is jumping the gun.

This is pretty much how the amusements industry has worked for decades--with a few exceptions, like Action Park, was was essentially sued out of existence. When there is something that is an unexpected event or tragedy--which happened despite designers/ops/maintenance's likely best intentions--there is then a re-examination of similar or identical technology elsewhere so that the same tragedy is not repeated there. In my opinion, that's how this industry should work. Parks should be as safe as possible and use available information to minimize harm (particularly serious harm) to visitors.

Very unlikely. People broke bones on Space Mountain because when it first opened, the curves were too sharp and resulted in G forces that were too strong. Operating for fifty years now. They made adjustments.

The report also says that the guest has a preexisting spinal injury. It's unclear if that contributed, but you should not be riding a rollercoaster of this caliber with that type of injury without talking to your doctor about it first simply because of the amount of g forces a coaster like this puts on your head and spine.

My main question is still about what guests saw possibly detact. Was is actually something that detected? Did a guest bring something they weren't supposed to and drop it? If there is a defect, it is likely a manufacturer defect, given Uni's extremely strict safety standards, in which case they will keep it closed and make the manufacturer come fix it.

There are many, many launch coasters that safely operate every day at parks around the world, many that go faster than this one. This is such a freak thing.

And I will say what I have said many times: unless you have a health issue, rollercoasters are safe. You are more likely to die in a car crash on the way to an amusement park than you are on a rollercoaster.

I've explained this elsewhere. But I think it's going to be closed for a while. Many months would be my guess. And the "won't be re-opening" part refers to its present track layout if it is determined that the particular turns/forces/movement of the course track cause unique stress that contributed to a failure with this particular restraint system. In that case, there's some difficult options--redesign part of the track, redesign restraints and seating compartments, etc. We probably won't know much for a while.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Agreed. I see little possibility where this is not legally universal's fault. There are similar coasters, similar restraints, etc. at other parks. So something failed with the restraints; OR team members missed something when loading; OR the design of this particular track course put unique stress on the restraint system or created a movement pattern in which his body type was not fully protected by the system (even though he appears to have met posted requirements), OR there was a manufacturing or maintenance flaw in this particular seating compartment, OR something else failed with the coaster train, such as a loose piece of metal or other decoration.

Your list contradicts your desire to jump to blaming Universal directly.

 

[lazyboy97o]

When there is something that is an unexpected event or tragedy--which happened despite designers/ops/maintenance's likely best intentions--there is then a re-examination of similar or identical technology elsewhere so that the same tragedy is not repeated there.

Which is why similar rides will often be shut down following such incidents. As of now, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

 

[disneylandtour]

Your list contradicts your desire to jump to blaming Universal directly.

I mean legal liability not moral culpability. That is, this is how I think the legal system will likely view it.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The ones in Paris are the decorative ones.

So what’s holding me in?

 

[lazyboy97o]

I mean legal liability not moral culpability. That is, this is how I think the legal system will likely view it.

Point still stands.

So what’s holding me in?

The lap bar.

 

[disneylandtour]

Which is why similar rides will often be shut down following such incidents. As of now, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

A few things: (1) I'm guessing that Mack is taking the position that this is not, as they presently know, a design flaw. Simply companies defend themselves until they can't. This is the official Mack statement: "We are currently unable to comment on the circumstances of the accident but are in close contact with the operator and the authorities and are actively supporting the investigation." (2) Unlike other incidents where there were similar ride systems in the US, I think--and please, correct me here if I'm wrong--most of the similar Mack coasters are in other countries (ie other jurisdictions): China, Germany, England, Australia, etc. That complicates these issues. If Universal had a similar Mack coaster in Hollywood, I would expect it to be closed right now (but again, that's only my speculation), (3) I think a lot of this is in flux until we have some report on how the coaster interaction contributed to or caused his death, and (4) in that list above, I believe that England and Germany have the strongest laws and legal/financial penalties for harm caused by amusement equipment. If there are additional closures I'd expect to see them there first. It would be kinda disastrous for, say, Europa park, if a tragedy occurs on their Mack coaster, to admit that they did little to inspect and reevaluate their ride after the Stardust Racers tragedy and not expect a jury to hit them with monstrous financial damages. Again, give all this a couple of weeks to play out.

 

[My95cobras]

Not to take away from the tragedy at all - but this is another reason not to under-build a theme park. Things happen.

Please elaborate how the number of rides effects any type of safety.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The lap bar.

There isn’t one.

 

[disneylandtour]

The lap bar.

I don't think you're that familiar with this particular ride.

 

[disneylandtour]

Please elaborate how the number of rides effects any type of safety.

There were two ideas being explored in that part of the thread. I believe this had nothing to do with safety, but rather with marketability of a park. If you build the minimum number of rides to hit something like 1.5 experiences per hour (that's generally the minimum range for a Disney/Uni park), and then one ride goes down, especially one with high hourly capacity, you're kinda screwed, as there's no way to easily fix that, except to reduce overall capacity, which can't happen quickly as tickets have been pre-sold. But again, I think the primary public focus here should not be on how this affects business at this point, but rather on overall ride safety and on the family of the guest who died.

 

[lazyboy97o]

There isn’t one.

Are you not talking about Space Mountain?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Are you not talking about Space Mountain?

Yes, in Paris. (Technically it’s gone by other names but the space mountain type of ride in Paris, yes! Haha)

 

[lazyboy97o]

Yes, in Paris. (Technically it’s gone by other names but the space mountain type of ride in Paris, yes! Haha)

It’s Hyperspace Mountain right now. It switched to lap bars a little over ten years ago (when it was Space Mountain: Mission 2) when the trains were replaced.

Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain: Rebel Mission - Disneyland Paris - Disneyland Park (Marne la Vallée, Île-de-France, France)

Looking for statistics on the fastest, tallest or longest roller coasters? Find it all and much more with the interactive Roller Coaster Database.

rcdb.com

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Vests are pointless, overly complicated and can cause issues themselves. Icebreaker at SeaWorld opened with vest restraints but had to take them off after an incident involving a child getting injured.

I wouldn’t say pointless but they definitely come with their own problems, neck and head pain from the actual restraints being the most common one, kind of becomes a lessor evil issue, nothing is 100% affective so the choice comes down to a lap restraint that’s 99.9999% affective and is comfortable or a shoulder restraint that’s 99.99999% affective but sends a dozen guests to the medical tent for minor aches and pains everyday.