Riders stranded for hours after Invertigo breaks down at Great America

[Oldiesmann]

Full article at http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13031694

[tigellinus]

Not to jinx it, and people's MMV, but KI's Invertigo has been fantastic overall in terms of reliability!

[coaster_junky]

this makes me wonder, why on earth did they not design these with platforms so that if something like this does happen the riders can be easily removed?

[jondrewfoo]

kinda ironic, i rode kis version of that ride just 2 hours ago...

[HTCO]

That must have sucked for the people facing the ground. I would have had a heart attack.

[shark6495]

yeah not so bad if you are facing the sky, just close your eyes and take a nap... if you are facing the ground that is when you start freaking out.... in fact it makes my stomach flip just thinking about it.....

[AgentSoB]

I kept on thinking when they flashed the headline, "What else does KI have to deal with?" Then I saw that it was Great America where the incident occurred. Not that an incident occurring there makes it better, but KI has had their hands full with enough issues recently.

[Tomkatt7]

That ran on the local news in Columbus too, then they had to mention Firehawk, and SoB after that.

The funny part was, when showing SoB, it was the animated video from before it was built, showing the POV of it going through the loop!!! I thought it was funny.

They said here that they were trapped for hours. I wonder if that means 2 hours, or like 6 or more. That would suck!!!

[dragsterfan420]

Does anyone have any speculation to how the ride got stuck up there?

[Guest rcfreak339]

I remember when Six Flags Great America's broke like this...

[Jasper]

I would not want to be any of those people stuck facing downward. Being stuck upward might not be so bad if you got some shade or where in a situation and had a good view of the park.

[Philosoraptor]

What an eventful afternoon.

[Dalefan]

This could be a number of things. Power outage just for the ride. The axle could of broke, which causes the ride to just stop anywhere on the track. A motor could of went. Or it had a malfunction.

[DaveStroem]

Must have been a real slow news day for this to make national news and then be picked up by most local news stations. I am sure that CF loved all the coverage

[Thrill_Biscuit]

I can imagine the people's thoughts getting on the cherry picker with the firefighters: "We waited an hour in line for this?"

Glad to see everyone was safe.

[Shaggy]

Not to jinx it, and people's MMV, but KI's Invertigo has been fantastic overall in terms of reliability!

I was personally stuck on KI's version (then Face/Off) for an hour. Train station brakes failed to work quick enough, and we stalled at the base of the cobra roll.

Shaggy

[Guest rcfreak339]

Invertigos have problems and KI's has been one that has not seen much down time, Yes it's down sometimes but compared to most Boomerangs it has to be one of the best.

[CincyMan98]

Crap and I just started a topic about Invertigo and how underrated it was. I can just imagine being stuck........ugh I'm afraid of heights so I would puke all over the place.

[Diamondback FOF]

That ran on the local news in Columbus too, then they had to mention Firehawk, and SoB after that.

The funny part was, when showing SoB, it was the animated video from before it was built, showing the POV of it going through the loop!!! I thought it was funny.

They said here that they were trapped for hours. I wonder if that means 2 hours, or like 6 or more. That would suck!!!

I think I read it was like 2.5 hours.

[The Interpreter]

Some riders were stuck for nearly five hours:

...Specialized units from the City of San Jose Fire Department and the Santa Clara County Fire Department worked in concert with the City of Santa Clara to safely free the riders over a nearly five hour period.

Riders were lowered in pairs using the platform baskets of San Jose Fire's Truck 29 and Santa Clara County's Truck 1. After safely reaching the ground, each rider was given a medical check and released, with many of the thrill seekers heading straight for other rides in the park.

There were no injuries to the patrons or their rescuers and the Invertigo roller coaster remains out of service pending repair.

http://www.firefightingnews.com/article-US...articleID=69162

[CincyMan98]

Yeah wasn't there a kid that was 14 years old or so that was stuck in it for those 4 or 5 hours? Haven't read the article (don't feel like it) and all I know about that is watching it on the news.

[The Interpreter]

Probe To Dismantle Invertigo At California's Great America:

...Inspectors from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health planned to take the ride apart and potentially send away mechanical parts for analysis, said agency spokeswoman Erika Monterroza.

It was not yet clear how long the investigation by the agency's elevator, ride and tramway unit would take, Monterroza said.

"Really what they're looking for is why the ride failed," she explained.

Great America spokesman Jim Stellmack said that while "The Invertigo" ride was shut down indefinitely as investigators looked into what caused the malfunction, other operations at the theme park were unaffected....

A preliminary investigation indicated that the ride's lift chain malfunctioned, Monterroza said. The lift chain pulls the train up the coaster's tracks....

http://cbs5.com/local/great.america.invest....2.1123940.html

[Diamondback96]

"The Invertigo"

If something is found wrong with this Invertigo, then KI may have to get rid of theirs (or at least get it inspected).

[Tomkatt7]

"The Invertigo"

If something is found wrong with this Invertigo, then KI may have to get rid of theirs (or at least get it inspected).

Same as the Drop Tower incident.

[Diamondback FOF]

Probe To Dismantle Invertigo At California's Great America:

...Inspectors from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health planned to take the ride apart and potentially send away mechanical parts for analysis, said agency spokeswoman Erika Monterroza.

It was not yet clear how long the investigation by the agency's elevator, ride and tramway unit would take, Monterroza said.

"Really what they're looking for is why the ride failed," she explained.

Great America spokesman Jim Stellmack said that while "The Invertigo" ride was shut down indefinitely as investigators looked into what caused the malfunction, other operations at the theme park were unaffected....

A preliminary investigation indicated that the ride's lift chain malfunctioned, Monterroza said. The lift chain pulls the train up the coaster's tracks....

http://cbs5.com/local/great.america.invest....2.1123940.html

That's gonna be expensive. But, it has to be done.

[dragsterfan420]

Probe To Dismantle Invertigo At California's Great America:

...Inspectors from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health planned to take the ride apart and potentially send away mechanical parts for analysis, said agency spokeswoman Erika Monterroza.

It was not yet clear how long the investigation by the agency's elevator, ride and tramway unit would take, Monterroza said.

"Really what they're looking for is why the ride failed," she explained.

Great America spokesman Jim Stellmack said that while "The Invertigo" ride was shut down indefinitely as investigators looked into what caused the malfunction, other operations at the theme park were unaffected....

A preliminary investigation indicated that the ride's lift chain malfunctioned, Monterroza said. The lift chain pulls the train up the coaster's tracks....

http://cbs5.com/local/great.america.invest....2.1123940.html

Thanks for all the info you always bring to the site Terp. As Diamondback FOF said this will probably be expensive ad does stink for the park and the ride itself it has to be done to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

I actually got the news of this coaster being stuck from my grandmother. She called me and said "A roller coaster is stuck upside down." Of course I said "No way", because as we all know it's almost physically impossible for a roller coaster to get stuck upside down. When I turned on the Fox news I was surprised and thought it was our precious KI Invertigo. Lucky it was not. Also I was surprised that this made national news. All the stations(Fox, CNN, NBC, ABC) probably thought this incident was going to result in death or they probably wouldn't have aired it.

[RailRider]

The ride will be down for 2 months.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13040386?sou...;nclick_check=1

[CedarPointer]

That's kind of... overkill...

[The Interpreter]

And you know this how?

[Oldiesmann]

I'd like to know why it took them so long to get everyone down to begin with. I realize that it's not easy to plan for such a situation, but Kings Island always seems to have a cherry picker laying around Invertigo for maintenance people to inspect the track, so surely Great America has something similar.