Splash Mountain falling apart (literally?)

[PeterAlt]

I just read this article that said in Eisner's final year, he authorized development of two new mountains for the MK: Fire Mountain in Adventurland and Bald Mountain in Fantasyland. After he left, both projects were cancelled, with FLE going where Bald Mountain was to go and nothing in the place of Fire Mountain. Fire Mountain would have required the re-routing and shortening of Jungle Cruise. From what I read of the plans for Fire Mountain, it sounds like it would have been an awesome ride. Why haven't they built it, and can a new WDW president put it back on track?

 

[Darth Sidious]

I just read this article that said in Eisner's final year, he authorized development of two new mountains for the MK: Fire Mountain in Adventurland and Bald Mountain in Fantasyland. After he left, both projects were cancelled, with FLE going where Bald Mountain was to go and nothing in the place of Fire Mountain. Fire Mountain would have required the re-routing and shortening of Jungle Cruise. From what I read of the plans for Fire Mountain, it sounds like it would have been an awesome ride. Why haven't they built it, and can a new WDW president put it back on track?

Yeah those plans were pretty widely known, surprised you only just heard about it. I am sure nothing is completely ever dead... some of those ideas could be made as planned or they can be a starting point for another new ride. Tower of Terror was a cancelled and dead project that was reworked years later. Here is to hoping!

 

[PeterAlt]

Yeah those plans were pretty widely known, surprised you only just heard about it. I am sure nothing is completely ever dead... some of those ideas could be made as planned or they can be a starting point for another new ride. Tower of Terror was a cancelled and dead project that was reworked years later. Here is to hoping!

I knew about Fire Mountain when it was just a rumor, but I didn't know the politics behind it. We still don't know the complete story. Of all the cancelled rides, none would have been a more perfect addition than Fire Mountain. It is the missing link in making the MK area better! Disney managers should have their heads examined if they can't see this as clearly as I do!

 

[Darth Sidious]

I knew about Fire Mountain when it was just a rumor, but I didn't know the politics behind it. We still don't know the complete story. Of all the cancelled rides, none would have been a more perfect addition than Fire Mountain. It is the missing link in making the MK area better! Disney managers should have their heads examined if they can't see this as clearly as I do!

Management has a lot to clout a decision like this. Most of the things clouding their vision look like this ---> $

 

[PeterAlt]

Management has a lot to clout a decision like this. Most of the things clouding their vision look like this ---> $

It sounds like taking bonuses, pay increases, and perks at the expense of maintenance and new attractions by WDO management is route cause of all the problems being discussed here, as well as when DLR had its problems. The solution to this problem and possible future problems at any resort must be a change in the system of the chain of command starting at the corporate level down. Simply put, the power of local WDO managers to make such cuts for bonuses, pay, perks, or benefits must be taken from them. I'm not sure how this could be done at the corporate level without micro management of the locals. Maybe corporate could have final approval on budgets drafted by local WDO offices, with greater scrutiny given to the "administration" section?

 

[cmeller]

I knew about Fire Mountain when it was just a rumor, but I didn't know the politics behind it. We still don't know the complete story. Of all the cancelled rides, none would have been a more perfect addition than Fire Mountain. It is the missing link in making the MK area better! Disney managers should have their heads examined if they can't see this as clearly as I do!

I'm new here and have never heard of Fire Mountain but after looking it up and seeing it would be like a superman type six flags coaster I'm glad it died. To me WDW is not a thrill park but rather full of rides that a wide range of children and adults can go on together. FM sounded more like a thrill ride with a bit more theming.

 

[PeterAlt]

I'm new here and have never heard of Fire Mountain but after looking it up and seeing it would be like a superman type six flags coaster I'm glad it died. To me WDW is not a thrill park but rather full of rides that a wide range of children and adults can go on together. FM sounded more like a thrill ride with a bit more theming.

MK needs a variety of rides, which it always has since it opened, in order to stay competitive. When the competition adds more thrilling rides, so should Disney, but only the way Disney does it. If they don't, more visitors will skip Disney in favor of Busch Gardens or IoA.

MK is supposed to have multiple mountain ranges, preferably one in each land. Adventureland is the most lacking of all the lands and needs something big in order to balance out the rest of the MK. DL's Adventureland has Indiana Jones (great ride, by the way), balancing out the MK there. I would like them to build Indy one day at DHS (as well as the Indy roller coaster from Paris), next to the stunt show, to make an Indiana Jones mini-land.

The volcano alone of Fire Mountain would have been seen across the Seven Seas Lagoon at the Polynesian, adding to the theme of that resort. At night, the erupting volcano would have glowed brightly on the lagoon, adding an amazing visual experience for the riders, as well as resort guests. The pyro techno effects on the ride would have been amazing. At the same time, it's a perfect Disneyesque response to similar ride technology at competitors' parks.

It also would have started a themed pattern WDW mountain ranges of elements: fire, water (Splash Mountain), and ice (EE).

 

[cmeller]

MK needs a variety of rides, which it always has since it opened, in order to stay competitive. When the competition adds more thrilling rides, so should Disney, but only the way Disney does it. If they don't, more visitors will skip Disney in favor of Busch Gardens or IoA.

MK a supposed to have multiple mountain ranges, preferably one in each land. Adventureland is the most lacking of all the lands and needs something big in order to balance out the rest of the MK. DL's Adventureland has Indiana Jones (great ride, by the way), balancing out the MK there. I would like them to build Indy one day at DHS (as well as the Indy roller coaster from Paris), next to the stunt show, to make an Indiana Jones mini-land.

The volcano alone of Fire Mountain would have been seen across the Seven Seas Lagoon at the Polynesian, adding to the theme of that resort. At night, the erupting volcano would have glowed brightly on the lagoon, adding an amazing visual experience for the riders, as well as resort guests. The pyro techno effects on the ride would have been amazing. At the same time, it's a perfect Disneyesque response to similar ride technology at competitors' parks.

It also would have started a themed pattern WDW mountain ranges of elements: fire, water (Splash Mountain), and ice (EE).

I get it.. just wouldn't want an arms race of bigger, faster coasters with nearby theme parks. Also, my younger sister has severe CP and the best memories of my youth was going to Disney and watching her be able to go on everything. Granted some rides took extra effort to carry her on but she loved it. Another great thing about Disney is how well their rides are accessible for almost everyone. I'm pretty sure a laying flat coaster would not be and that's why I'm hesitant to be excited for that type of ride. I would much rather a Cars type ride like they have at DL. You could have a mountain type ride like that.. just theme it into an adventure theme.

 

[wdw71fan]

Lit by daylight?

Don't press your luck

 

[Alektronic]

knocked off.. she was in the exclusion zone and got knocked off.. hit her head and sustained fatal injuries. The other was a CM who was working on the track area and fell.

@Alektronic - unfortunately.. the big difference is CMs vs guests in the deaths :/

I mean when we add in the actor who fell off a simple stage and dies.. and then add the kid running into the bus.. it was a nasty nasty period. But how much can you attest to 'way of working' - which is what make the DLR changes so necessary.

Let clear up the facts here:

First, it was an Operations CM and she was the only one working there on the platform, she was the unload/load/tower operator. That was management's decision to reduce manpower and save a little bit of money. She dispatched the ride vehicle and went over to push down the lap bars and part of her costume got caught on the ride vehicle and she got dragged to her death and no one else was there to push the E-stop.

Second was a maintenance CM during ATP ride testing, they were checking the brake zones when they got wet and his was spraying a hose to wet the brake and got hit the head by a ride vehicle. They were trying to do things faster with less people.

Just like the accident at BTRR, they didn't have sufficent staffing but tried to run as usual, having other people not familar with the attraction working on it. That happens a lot more than you think. So it is management decisions affect things more than you think.

 

[iheartdisney91]

hey guys, we took our trip last week, and thought i'd share a photo i took of the mountain's construction.

 

[flynnibus]

Let clear up the facts here:

First, it was an Operations CM and she was the only one working there on the platform, she was the unload/load/tower operator. That was management's decision to reduce manpower and save a little bit of money. She dispatched the ride vehicle and went over to push down the lap bars and part of her costume got caught on the ride vehicle and she got dragged to her death and no one else was there to push the E-stop.

Thanks for that extra info. But wasn't it still her fault for dispatching and THEN approaching the vehicle? Why would you check lap bars AFTER you dispatch the vehicle to move beyond the load station? Procedure certainly would not have been 'approach, check, and then e-stop the attraction if the lap bar safety check fails'. She put herself at risk by approaching the vehicle after the vehicle was cleared to leave the station. Unless she was trained to operate this way this seems like a mistake on her part... but Disney's actual operation of the ride was not found at fault in any of the findings. The fines were all about things like guards, handrails, trip hazard, etc.

 

[COProgressFan]

Thanks for that extra info. But wasn't it still her fault for dispatching and THEN approaching the vehicle? Why would you check lap bars AFTER you dispatch the vehicle to move beyond the load station? Procedure certainly would not have been 'approach, check, and then e-stop the attraction if the lap bar safety check fails'. She put herself at risk by approaching the vehicle after the vehicle was cleared to leave the station. Unless she was trained to operate this way this seems like a mistake on her part... but Disney's actual operation of the ride was not found at fault in any of the findings. The fines were all about things like guards, handrails, trip hazard, etc.

I know nothing about this case specifically, but I will say this. Very often its easy to blame the victim (so to speak) for doing something wrong like this. I'm sure she wasn't trained to do what she did, but humans make mistakes. Maybe she was tired, or hungry, or simply forgot. Or maybe she developed a sense of complacency over time and realized after the fact she needed to check the lap bar.

Regardless, safety experts would consider how the culture of the safety in the workplace, staffing, training, and the physical work environment all contribute to accidents. There is no one simple cause. Lots of factors are at play in these situations, and the blame rarely if ever all falls on the victim, even if OSHA doesn't find fault.

 

[flynnibus]

I know nothing about this case specifically, but I will say this. Very often its easy to blame the victim (so to speak) for doing something wrong like this. I'm sure she wasn't trained to do what she did, but humans make mistakes. Maybe she was tired, or hungry, or simply forgot. Or maybe she developed a sense of complacency over time and realized after the fact she needed to check the lap bar.

Reports are that a guest was having trouble, and she went to assist. The mistake was she didn't use the interlock or halt the dispatch, but instead cut a corner and tried to do it 'live' - that ultimately lead to the accident.

What Disney did afterwards was add more things to try to stop the system in case a human makes a mistake. They extended the platform, they added indications to better identify the zones, and added safety trips that would shut the ride down if someone was detected in the exclusion zone (pressure mats). None of this is necessary to operate the ride, but are additional layers of safety to better protect people when something goes wrong.

What happened was an accident - but an accident caused by the operator's choices. Disney was not faulted in their ride operation or training... but rather workplace issues like handrails, etc.

Contrast that with the BTMRR incident - where it was found employees were not properly trained in the procedures and supervisors did not complete checks and work even tho they said they had. The failure to follow proper procedure lead to a situation that caused a mistake not be caught, which in turn allowed a mechanical failure to happen. Systematically, Disney was failing.. and eventually it caught up to them. Here in the PW operator accident, there is no finding (to my knowledge) that Disney was training improperly or that any system failed to perform. It was a mistake by the operator, and there were not additional layers of protection there to bail her out of her mistake.

 

[SirLink]

Reports are that a guest was having trouble, and she went to assist. The mistake was she didn't use the interlock or halt the dispatch, but instead cut a corner and tried to do it 'live' - that ultimately lead to the accident.

What Disney did afterwards was add more things to try to stop the system in case a human makes a mistake. They extended the platform, they added indications to better identify the zones, and added safety trips that would shut the ride down if someone was detected in the exclusion zone (pressure mats). None of this is necessary to operate the ride, but are additional layers of safety to better protect people when something goes wrong.

What happened was an accident - but an accident caused by the operator's choices. Disney was not faulted in their ride operation or training... but rather workplace issues like handrails, etc.

Contrast that with the BTMRR incident - where it was found employees were not properly trained in the procedures and supervisors did not complete checks and work even tho they said they had. The failure to follow proper procedure lead to a situation that caused a mistake not be caught, which in turn allowed a mechanical failure to happen. Systematically, Disney was failing.. and eventually it caught up to them. Here in the PW operator accident, there is no finding (to my knowledge) that Disney was training improperly or that any system failed to perform. It was a mistake by the operator, and there were not additional layers of protection there to bail her out of her mistake.

Whether it was Disney or the operators fault is a mute one at best, Disney should of had those safety implementations in place before the ride was operational...

...maybe, just, maybe Disney has learned from the BTMTR incident - in knowing how to defend itself and lay better defenses to the arguments of 'poor training'

 

[flynnibus]

Whether it was Disney or the operators fault is a mute one at best, Disney should of had those safety implementations in place before the ride was operational...

With such a train of thought - there is never an end to what safety implementations SHOULD have been in place. Systems can always be made more safe - such an excuse that things should have been MORE safe is a pointless argument because it doesn't look at what was done, what was reasonable, and what tradeoffs there are. Everything can be MORE safe..

Do you find your car's manufacturer at fault for not making the car not stop itself if you fail to stop it? After all, they should have had those safety implementation in place before they sold you the car...

 

[SirLink]

With such a train of thought - there is never an end to what safety implementations SHOULD have been in place. Systems can always be made more safe - such an excuse that things should have been MORE safe is a pointless argument because it doesn't look at what was done, what was reasonable, and what tradeoffs there are. Everything can be MORE safe..

Do you find your car's manufacturer at fault for not making the car not stop itself if you fail to stop it? After all, they should have had those safety implementation in place before they sold you the car...

Two completely different things: but shouldn't Primeval Hurl of already had a system the safety trips that would stop the ride if someone had entered an exclusion zone, been one of those items they should of added when they bought it off the shelves.

But you seem lately to be defending a company a little too much without seeing any of it's faults ... but hey-ho...

 

[Alektronic]

Thanks for that extra info. But wasn't it still her fault for dispatching and THEN approaching the vehicle? Why would you check lap bars AFTER you dispatch the vehicle to move beyond the load station? Procedure certainly would not have been 'approach, check, and then e-stop the attraction if the lap bar safety check fails'. She put herself at risk by approaching the vehicle after the vehicle was cleared to leave the station. Unless she was trained to operate this way this seems like a mistake on her part... but Disney's actual operation of the ride was not found at fault in any of the findings. The fines were all about things like guards, handrails, trip hazard, etc.

It is easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback, they should done this or that. The easy and simple solution was to have 2 people, 1 at unload/load and another at the tower. So any problems at least 1 person is near the E-Stop at all times.

But that was Standard Operating Procedure, the lap bars are supposed to open automatically at unload, then people unload and the next people get in and close the lap bars then walk all the way to the end of the platform to dispatch and then come back to unload and do the next vehicle but when the lap bar pops back up in the station, she went to push it back down as it was moving slowly in the station, the unfortunate part was her costume getting stuck somehow and nobody there to stop the ride.

 

[Alektronic]

Reports are that a guest was having trouble, and she went to assist. The mistake was she didn't use the interlock or halt the dispatch, but instead cut a corner and tried to do it 'live' - that ultimately lead to the accident.

What Disney did afterwards was add more things to try to stop the system in case a human makes a mistake. They extended the platform, they added indications to better identify the zones, and added safety trips that would shut the ride down if someone was detected in the exclusion zone (pressure mats). None of this is necessary to operate the ride, but are additional layers of safety to better protect people when something goes wrong.

What happened was an accident - but an accident caused by the operator's choices. Disney was not faulted in their ride operation or training... but rather workplace issues like handrails, etc.

Contrast that with the BTMRR incident - where it was found employees were not properly trained in the procedures and supervisors did not complete checks and work even tho they said they had. The failure to follow proper procedure lead to a situation that caused a mistake not be caught, which in turn allowed a mechanical failure to happen. Systematically, Disney was failing.. and eventually it caught up to them. Here in the PW operator accident, there is no finding (to my knowledge) that Disney was training improperly or that any system failed to perform. It was a mistake by the operator, and there were not additional layers of protection there to bail her out of her mistake.

What interlock are you talking about? How does she halt the dispatch when she is not in the tower?

 

[flynnibus]

What interlock are you talking about? How does she halt the dispatch when she is not in the tower?

Because you don't approach a vehicle that has already been dispatched. She should have never left the tower to approach the vehicle without the interlock. She sent the vehicle off - and then tried to interact with it.

Kind of like trying to grab a car that is ready to speed away.