https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/51230101/waldameer-investigating-incident-on-amusement-ride

There was an accident on the Flying Swings ride at Waldameer in Erie, PA last night that resulted in three people being sent to the hospital. Nothing official yet other than a statement from the park saying they're investigating.

According to a screenshot of a Facebook post from someone involved that my sister found, an operator attempted to stop the ride after a guest kept trying to open his restraint, but the ride continued rotating at full speed as it lowered, finally slowing down once swings started hitting an umbrella at the operator stand. The ride is similar to Zephyr, though I don't know if it's the same model.

After digging around, I can't seem to find out what type of malfunction the swings had or what type of injuries were sustained but hopefully the injured parties make a speedy recovery as it did not sound as if anyone was in a critical or life threatening condition. 

On a side note: maybe they should squash the swings instead of the spider to make space for their new flat ride! 

Searching for info on Facebook, I found this post in an Erie group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/668392443222569/?multi_permalinks=8213398108721927

On many flat rides the estop is a power disconnect.  The ride just starts coasting, but with it likely requiring a motor to stay in the air the ride likely just kept spinning only slowing due to friction and lowering to the ground.  To me it seems very weird that anything would be in the way of the ride vehicles even spinning at ground level.  If the chairs swing out that far, it seems to me that area should be clear.

I should point out I watched a news video on this accident last night, and they claimed the reason the ride op hit the e-stop was the ride was spinning too quickly.  Which caused the chairs to go out farther than they should have.  I don’t know the cause, but something definitely went wrong.  Thinking about it, I wonder if the kid wanted off because it was “too fast” and nothing on the ride actually malfunctioned, and they tried raising their restraint so the ride op hit the e-stop and it started coasting.

Did the ride or riders actually hit the railing?  In my view if this happened, the fence needs moved.  But based on the news reporting 3 people had minor injuries, my guess is they hit the ride ops umbrella, not the fence.  Maybe the ride op should be in a different position or move the umbrella at least, but the riders should not be at risk of hitting something just because the e-stop was hit.

To me, it doesn't matter how fast the ride is spinning, if the swings/seats are capable of hitting anything in their path no matter the speed, then the "anything" is too close.  Seems like the standard should be a 45 degree angle from vertical; maybe even more (up to possibly 90 degrees, though the amount of power the motor would have to generate beyond its normal capacity would be far too great to actually reach those levels of speed required).

No matter the reason, it sounds like there was some sort of poor E-stop settup.

Furthermore, doesn't it seem like there should be something more than just a "kill switch" on the power?  Unless gravity/friction are going to slow you down quickly, I would think there is easily a situation where you want a quick slow down, not a long, gradual slow down.  ie in the instance where a kid is trying to climb out of the restraints.  You want that ride to slow down rather quickly rather than be allowed to spin freely if that spin freely is going to lead to a long gradual slow down.  Reduce the amount of time serious injury could happen to a guest that isn't following the rules.

 

It sounds like they were hitting the fence around the ride and hit the umbrella for the associate as the rotation didn't slow.  

Sounds like maybe an error in the estop to allow it to continue to spin full speed while the ride lowered?  How often do they test that and is the normal operation when it is hit?

On the flip side, if the estop completely stopped the rotation, many of the riders would have slammed together and I could see certain body dimensions where the momentum of the swing would stop and their upper body continue and potentially be tossed from the ride.

2nd accident in as many months on similar rides, rip them out I am sure someone is saying somewhere...