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Xcelerator cable loose


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An Orange County roller coaster remains closed after a cable broke and injured two riders this week, Knott’s Berry Farm officials said today.

When the Xcelerator roller coaster launched just before 4 p.m. Wednesday, a cable came loose and cut a 12-year-old boy in the leg, officials said. And a man was treated for back injuries after the malfunction, during which smoke and debris shot into the air and the ride’s cars rolled back into the boarding area, said Meghan Gardner, a spokeswoman for Knott’s Berry Farm.

The ride was shut down immediately and will remain closed while the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the Buena Park amusement park investigates, Gardner said. ...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009...-injures-2.html

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^ My thoughts exactly. I know it's not even remotely common for this sort of thing to happen, but between this incident and the fact that it's already happened once on Top Thrill Dragster, I can't help but less confident about jumping on another Intamin hydraulically-launched coaster. Not to mention another infamous Intamin cable-related incident: the Drop Tower ordeal at SFKK. I don't mean to paint Intamin designers as bad people, but at the same time, it's not exactly like you hear about this sort of thing nearly as often (if at all) with Premier, B&M, S&S...

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I'm afraid of launched coasters now. :P

No seriously - how could that happen? I really hate how unexpected things happen to people who are just trying to have fun. It makes me really sad :( . But I don't understand how the cable could have snapped.

Its a cable, its bound to ware out and break.

This has also happened on TTD if I remember correctly

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^ My thoughts exactly. I know it's not even remotely common for this sort of thing to happen, but between this incident and the fact that it's already happened once on Top Thrill Dragster, I can't help but less confident about jumping on another Intamin hydraulically-launched coaster. Not to mention another infamous Intamin cable-related incident: the Drop Tower ordeal at SFKK. I don't mean to paint Intamin designers as bad people, but at the same time, it's not exactly like you hear about this sort of thing nearly as often (if at all) with Premier, B&M, S&S...

You can't compare the SFKK incident and Intamin launched coaster cables.

That is like saying: "Oh, there was a Explorer that rolled over, I don't feel confident in any car now."

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You can't compare the SFKK incident and Intamin launched coaster cables.

That is like saying: "Oh, there was a Explorer that rolled over, I don't feel confident in any car now."

Not to be a pain the butt, but how so? My point was that the involved kinds of Intamin rides seem to rely strongly on exposed cables that have the possibility to snap and injure the riders, which makes my intended statement more along the lines of, "Oh, there were some Ford SUVs and a similar Ford pickup that rolled over in average driving conditions; I don't feel confident in Ford cars now." It wouldn't be a matter of the SUV being known to flip over in an accident; it'd be a matter of the car doing exactly what it was intended to do and failing nonetheless, even after thorough owner inspection and repairs. That the car would be known to flip wouldn't reflect in how I would feel about SUVs- it would change how I would view Ford's engineering since a vaguely similar vehicle, a pickup, has been known to do the same thing. And, to me, this seems no different, though I'm not swearing off rides on TTD or something now; I just couldn't help but feel not quite as excited about Intamin's cable-using rides after taking in the incidents with a cable snapping. That's all I'm saying.

(No offense towards Ford fans- your cars are just the victims of the example. ;) )

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You can't compare the SFKK incident and Intamin launched coaster cables.

That is like saying: "Oh, there was a Explorer that rolled over, I don't feel confident in any car now."

Not to be a pain the butt, but how so? My point was that the involved kinds of Intamin rides seem to rely strongly on exposed cables that have the possibility to snap and injure the riders, which makes my intended statement more along the lines of, "Oh, there were some Ford SUVs and a similar Ford pickup that rolled over in average driving conditions; I don't feel confident in Ford cars now." It wouldn't be a matter of the SUV being known to flip over in an accident; it'd be a matter of the car doing exactly what it was intended to do and failing nonetheless, even after thorough owner inspection and repairs. That the car would be known to flip wouldn't reflect in how I would feel about SUVs- it would change how I would view Ford's engineering since a vaguely similar vehicle, a pickup, has been known to do the same thing. And, to me, this seems no different, though I'm not swearing off rides on TTD or something now; I just couldn't help but feel not quite as excited about Intamin's cable-using rides after taking in the incidents with a cable snapping. That's all I'm saying.

(No offense towards Ford fans- your cars are just the victims of the example. ;) )

The SFKK incident was directly caused by maintenance not performing preventative maintenance on their equipment. The fact that it happened on an Intamin ride had nothing to do with the actual accident.

Now cables have snapped before on Intamin launched coasters. That is a serious issue, and one that needs to be addressed, but comparing both accidents to each other just because a cable snapped is apples and oranges. In one incident, a young girl lost her feet; in the other incidents, the riders received superficial injuries due to flying debris- and of course the one back injury, which, if you have ever been on a launched coaster that rolled back, is questionable at this point.

The cable snapping on the launched coasters has happened not more than one time on each ride due to frequence on replacing the cables. KK incident had no riders, and it wasn't the cable that snapped, but the pull car became dislodged. The Excelerator incident sounds exactly like the TTD incident, which means that the cable will probably need to be changed more frequently.

I am not discrediting the seriousness of the accident, and it does need to be addressed, but, generalizing cable incidents to every Intamin ride that has cables is unfair as well. Especially since we do not know the exact cause as of yet.

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The funny thing is, the guy who was complaining of the neck and back pain will be the one to sue the park for the most money. Even though the cables on the launch coasters get inspected daily or they are pose to, they still can break at some point even if the inspection of the cables showed no breaks or major wear in them. The cable on Xcelerator could of gotten some kind of break in it sometime in the day to cause it to break. I know that after the TTD cable break, the park closed the ride every 2 to 4 hrs for a short time in the season to inspect the new cable to make sure it was doing ok. And the one who wasnt badly injured after the cable break on TTD sued for the most. The SFKK Drop Tower accident was the parks fault. The park tryed to blame Intamin for the cables being bad. Intamin did say that they didnt give them the cables for the tower. But Cedar Fair closed all Intamin made Drop Towers after the SFKK accident as a precaution. I wouldnt be surprised if Cedar Fair closed TTD to make sure that the cable isnt bad after the Xcelerator accident. Cedar Fair is real good with the maintance on the rides at the parks. For a ride to malfuction and it being the parks fault is very slim. But it can happen. Im just wondering if they do the on ride video on Xcelerator. That would be the only way to get that kind of video on the coaster. I can see the employee who posted the video getting fired if he or she wasnt pose to post it.

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Guest rcfreak339

That is true but one thing is for certain. Intamin needs to find a way to less expose the cables. This will decrease weathering and if it happened again shards of the cable won't go flying into riders faces.

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That video is very disturbing to say the least. I agree, they ought to find a way to cover the cables to protect them from the elements. Stuff still happens-I wonder how long its gonna be before Bambi wanders on the track at Beast. When I went through last summer, he was standing by the track eating and was very comfortable with the train running through just a few feet from him.

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