RollerColt

I am a sucker for anything with jalapeños lol…

Yep, just saw KI share it too. Adding seat belts to the rides.

While non-Six Flags B&M hyper models have been reopening, as far as I can tell the chain's are still closed indefinitely.

Look. You're right. Every situation and tragic event has certain circumstances. And yes, this particular restraint has, up until this month, been safe. As far as your particular example from 2004: That guest's body size was incompatible with the Intamin T-restraint AND the seat belt to start with. The guest had undisclosed cerebral palsy. They should have never even attempted to get on that ride in the first place. Intamin afterwards changed their restraints and used standardized seat belts that used fixed lengths on every seat to ensure proper clearance.

A follow up. 1) I am now convinced more than ever that the seatbelt would have at least kept him on the ride vehicle. Would it have saved his life? Too many variables. From witness accounts we know the restraint opened during the ride operation at some point after the first drop. We also know he was aware and was trying to keep the restraint down. Before the final hills he lost consciousness... Once a rider loses consciousness and has no control of their body it's too difficult to fully predict what would happen. But seatbelts need to be a must for rides. I don't care if it slows down operations. 2) The evaluation is still early, but it really feels like this was a mechanical failure due to a lack in maintenance. Yes, B&Ms are incredibly safe... but they aren't infallible. 20 years of being in operation... That's plenty of time for wear and tear.

Oh I should clarify I’ve since returned after Six Flags left. Yes, it’s leaps and bounds better. They’re operating within their scale and they’re focusing on families (that’s where the true money is made, not extreme rides in my opinion).

Yep. And now the Cedar Fair executive group is basically gone. I’ve always been biased against Six Flags. And that’s just my own personal reasons… every time I tried Kentucky Kingdom it was a horrible experience. It was a small snapshot, but from the ride maintenance, to the absolute poor customer service… I just never felt like this merger was ever going to be a good idea. Cedar Fair was taken for suckers.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/15/us/six-flags-injuries-invs There’s your nail in the coffin news report. Stick a fork in Six Flags the corporation, it’s done. This is the type of stuff that damages a reputation so badly there’s no coming back. Remember, not long after CNN released a damaging report on X2, the ride officially closed permanently.

Apparently they’re still reviewing and plan to make a decision in the next day or so for Candymonium.

I believe Candymonium is, not sure about Mako but I imagine pretty much all of them are closed at the moment.

Yeah Ryan the Ride Mechanic has a very good, well detailed preliminary video. It goes over the mechanic aspects of that particular restraint. There really is something strange about this entire situation. The fact that the restraint had a total failure and all of the fail-safes failed... just seems so shocking. With so many other parks and brands that use this particular hyper model, I don't think Six Flags can skirt away with this. They'll need to make public their findings. I guess we'll see just how much of a mechanical failure this tragedy was. If parks start reopening their rides this weekend we'll know something else happened. But if they stay closed for the rest of the season, then we know something indeed catastrophically failed with train itself. And then I keep going back to seatbelts...

Yep. And if / when they do, a lot of the lawsuits can go unpaid.

People will always be desperate to get money from others. They’re easily sold on hiring attorneys for the sake of attacking a large corporation and hoping for a quick settlement.

Funny you mentioned airplanes. My wife is absolutely terrified of them because naturally when an accident happens its major news. So we never, ever fly anywhere. It's always drive, no matter the distance. And yeah, from what I'm seeing the corporation is doing a pretty poor job of at least attempting to do damage control with all these news outlets. I think I saw that same ranking on Facebook that you're talking about... Wasn't it provided by a law firm that specializes in amusement park lawsuits? Makes me wonder if the end game is to just eliminate theme parks all together... of course there goes their job security!

So I decided to look up the “thoosie” community… I’m appalled… Posts talking about tricking ride operators by pushing out your belly when they do checks so once the train is sent off you have “extra space” between your body and the restraints… all for the sake of experiencing more airtime… I don’t even know where to begin…

With everything happening… I don’t think our park is going to be doing any investments for the future.

Court of public opinion has already gone off the rails. I’ve had several relatives who aren’t theme park people and have very little knowledge contacting me telling me to not let my kids ride roller coasters because they saw the news. I’ve tried to reason with them that it’s far more dangerous to drive a car than ride a roller coaster, but they’re not having it. I wonder if Goliath will be removed… and I also wonder if they’re entertaining the thought of renaming the Magic Mountain one… it’s all too early to tell but so far a lot of general public opinion is changing on rides and Six Flags. It’s not often a clear cut case for a family to sue and get a huge payout… but in this case that poor family deserves some form of justice.

It made me ill. Just unbelievably tragic.

First thing that shows up on Facebook... the actual photos of the incident... why... why do people share that?

Insane… isn’t one of the first things taught in engineering school that a machine will always eventually fail?

I understand. I’m feeling pretty pessimistic about so much in life right now, and I honestly wonder what will happen to this park when inevitably a private equity group takes over… Not going to lie, once Six Flags took over I pretty much stopped going. I saw how bad it got with Kentucky Kingdom… cut corners, a lack of care in customer experience… poor maintenance, poor food… dirty, run down buildings and rides…

Closing all B&M hyper models… that’s not good for either Six Flags or the manufacturer… What an awful day. That poor family. Not going to lie it kind of makes me not want to ride anymore either…

I confess I’m out of the loop… Thoosies, is that a derogatory term for theme park enthusiasts? Also, why are seat belts so controversial to that particular group? I’ve never got on a ride with seat belts and thought “ugh now my ride is ruined because of a seat belt”.

I mean... the brisket is pretty darned amazing. I don't think I've ever been disappointed with Buc-ee's food, but Six Flags? They've left me disappointed many times lol.

It had to be done. It will be interesting to see how to they look to replace it. Magic Mountain isn’t the type of park I’d imagine that would let that area sit for too long like ours with Vortex.