Kingda Ka Breakdown... Sound Familiar?

Dennis from XtremeCoasters said:

There are now many reports coming in of the apparent breakdown which occured on Kingda Ka on June 8th. The breakdown occured during testing of the ride which caused the launching to come to a holt before the tower. An eye witness report from a writer for about.com Arthur Levine, said that "As I was standing in the loading station however, I watched as one of the trains launched, made a terrible racket, and appeared to shear rods of metal that shot out from either side of the track."

There were no riders on the ride at the time of the incident. At this point there has been no official statement from to read the full report from that day.

view the latest status on the ride ...

Wow, thats kinda early since its opening for the cable to fray. It didn't happen on Dragster until 2003, correct?

Some articles pass this incident off with the cable just snapping. Others say the train didn't even make it to the tower and it was spraying metal everywhere. It doesn't sound like a cable break to me. Something more serious. I wasn't there so I can't say much about it.

When TTD sprayed metal, the train made all the way over the tower even. How big of a hult did the train make?

TTD opened in 2003. The cable frayed in July 2004. Kingda Ka just opened two weeks ago, and this happens.

TTD's cable broke on Memorial Day 2003. It's not an uncommon incedent. And it doesn't matter how long the ride has been open. These things happen, I'd think the ride is more vunerable (sp?) when it first opens since the park maintenance is still getting use to the ride's operation.

This would be more suited to Coaster Buzz.

No offense to SiX Flags, but you would have to have rocks in your head to build a rocket coaster. Six Flags and everyone else saw how many problems TTD had at its height, and Six Flags wanted to build one taller! What were they expecting? This ride has an almost 100% chance of having major problems just like TTD, since the design was not changed in any major way. Six Flags would have had to know what they were getting into, so I don't feel bad for them in any way. I am actually hoping that they have major problems with this ride.

its about time something happened to that thing. since i live in nj, all i hear is how great and superior KK is to TTD and all this blah blah blah. having worked at CP the 1st year of TTD, i knew it wouldnt be long until KK started acting like TTD. all those ppl at SF stuck their noses up at CP and said their ride wouldnt suffer the same fates as TTD. now maybe this will shut these people up and make them realize that its not invincible.

Gomez said:
TTD's cable broke on Memorial Day 2003. It's not an uncommon incedent. And it doesn't matter how long the ride has been open. These things happen, I'd think the ride is more vunerable (sp?) when it first opens since the park maintenance is still getting use to the ride's operation.

May 2003 - http://pointbuzz.com/news.htm?id=123
July 2004 - http://pointbuzz.com/news.htm?id=457

A cable separation, and a cable fray. I was talking about the cable fray in July 2004.

you would think that intamin would have learned from the mistakes they made on TTD when they engineered KK, but it seems like they didnt learn a darn thing except how to come up with new ways to break it down.

Being a fan of rollercoasters and not just Cedar Point coasters, I hate reading about problems regardless of where the ride is located.

I don't believe a cable fray would stop the ride in mid-launch, unless there is some sort of sensor that stops the launch on KK that TTD does not have. So if the ride did stop during launch then it must have been a cable snap. Which I could see happening this early with a dare I say "layed back" Six Flags maitenance crew.

Metal shooting out?? This sounds way way way more than just a cable fray or anything like that, especially if it was noticed from the station. This sounds more like the catch car track, the nylon inserts that the car rides on, or the catch car itself was damaged. The sad thing is that KK is watered just like TTD for catch car cooling/lubricating. I wonder if somebody shut off the water accidentally. Just a theory.

This was eventually going to happen seeing that it is almost "exactly" similar to Dragster.
But this whole incident does however sound odd. I mean hearing "and appeared to shear rods of metal that shot out from either side of the track" does not sound good(or fixable). At least nobody got hurt(or died).

Yet, a part of me is happy that this happend???
Don't ask why......

If the train stopped mid-launch, did the incident have something to do with malfuntioning brake fins/a combination of a cable snapping?

I don't feel sorry for them. If they were THAT flipping ignorant to build that ride and spend that much money I just have to sit back, laugh and wait for the trainwreck that is Six Flags to make a mess of yet another situation.

I'm so glad Cedar Fair bought SFWOA, I never felt totally safe with my kids riding rides that they maintained and trained people to run.

Kingda Ka, good luck with that.

Well, it was a little behind and no fatalities... but it still went "boom.":

Article

Nothing has been confirmed yet. Everything is still "he said, she said".

Nothing confirmed?

http://www.gainsider.com/scripts/pictures/view_album.php?albumID=219

What?

I didn't say "nothing happened - the ride is just fine". I said "nothing has been confirmed yet". Let me make this a bit easier for you to understand: Nobody knows exactly what has happened yet.

Satisfied?