Skyhawk Cable Snap - July 26, 2014

It's pretty common for rides like this to go into free swing when they are e-stopped. I believe maXair does the same.

E-stop should mean stop now, not 10 minutes from now. Riders were exposed to a dangling cable until it stopped.

Fan forum is a good place to find people who might have been in the park last night, no?
I try to refrain from rumor and conjecture in my stories.

And yes, sarcasm noted.

Latest news with photos shows approximately where the cable landed. There is a vehicle right up next to the ride so it is possible that the cable actually did not break the wood, but rather it was removed for quick vehicle access (not saying this is what happened...just saying this is "plausible")

http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/local/northeast-ohio/2014/07/27/two-.../13235979/

Had the "make it go" rope failed I would expect it to get immediately sucked into the tower. Had it just been the stabilization rope, I wouldn't expect the broken rope to take out the fence. Therefore my logical but uninformed guess is that the component which attaches the stabilization rope to the top of the sweep might have failed, turning the stabilization rope into a giant hammer capable of removing the top rail from the fence.

That's a guess. Let me emphasize that. That's a guess..

It's also worth noting that "emergency stop" often does not mean what you might expect it to mean. You would expect it to mean, "Make it stop, RFN!". In fact, because the requirements for emergency stop functions prior to June of 2014* were rooted in electrical requirements, the real meaning of "emergency stop" is "Kill the power and dump the stores energy, RFN!". That means kill the power and vent the air system, removing all energy from the ride actuating means. That means a ride like Skyhawk, which relies on a powered stop, would go into free swing.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

* ASTM F2291-14:11.3.7.2 calls for a Ride Emergency Stop function "optimized to stop all hazardous amusement ride or device motion safely and as quickly as practicable." Prior to this, all mention of emergency stopping functions was in terms (mostly) of electrical disconnect and rooted in NFPA 70:525 (National Electric Code section on amusement rides). ASTM F2291-13:11.3.11 describes a Category 0 stop function as "Stopping by immediate removal of all control powered the amusement ride or device, all brakes, or other mechanical stopping devices being activated." In 2005 that was F2291-05:11.4.1.1 but the text is the same as in 2013.

--DCAjr.

How many times has this particular incident occurred?

I heard four, but I can only remember this being the second.

Last year, the drive cable snapped, last night a stabilization cable to the carriage snapped.

In looking at the ride, it was most definitely the tension cable that faces the midway that broke off. The drive cables look fine on both sides of the ride. As to why they let it freewheel, it is possible that they did not want to put the stress and force of braking on the ride vehicle since a structural piece that stabilizes the vehicle was missing.

I would guess that it won't be difficult for an engineer to figure out why the failure happened and put a fix in place. Seems to be a fairly straight forward fatigue failure of a component in the tension cable, whether it is the cable itself or the mounting hardware.

I'm really glad I wasn't riding this when this happened. I felt so nervous on Skyhawk at Coaster campout for some reason, and I think I would be traumatized off rides for a while if I witnessed this while riding. I know accidents can happen of course, but it's a totally different thing to have experienced it. Glad nobody was too seriously injured.

Thabto said:
If there was a cable loose and swinging around the riders, why wouldn't they stop the ride immediately instead of letting it swing freely for 15 minutes until it loses it's energy? That sounds far too dangerous. I think that would mean they were unable to stop the ride because the cable that snapped caused them to lose control of the ride.

You do realize part of the cable was still attached to the ride, right? If they would have done a sudden stop the cable would have come flying right back at the people on the ride causing more injuries.

Think of it this way: you are in the doghouse and something goes violently wrong with your ride. What do you do? Remember, you don't yet know what is wrong, you just know it is wrong.

I'm guessing you frob the E-stop. And since this ride was not built after June 2014, that means you pull the plug on the ride and let it coast.

I should be at the park in a couple of hours. I'm guessing there will be "nothing to see here" but I'll look anyway. 8-)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I think what Pete pointed out makes sense, also. Actually stopping, if it's possible, may have put more pressure on the other cables than they normally would have been under and risked snapping a second cable or some other structural damage which could be even more dangerous than what had already occurred. Stopping immediately or on it's own are both potentially problematic.

I wonder what the ride operators were trained to do in this type of situation. It appears that this might have been different than the incident last summer, but are there procedures in place for all of the situations that can go wrong with a ride? Probably not. Are the young people who operate the rides trained to make life saving decisions on a dime, it's so rare for accidents like this to happen. I am praying for everyone involved, they are going to have nightmares for awhile.

I again agree with Dave. Something broke, operator hit e-stop, the ride went into a "free-swing" and required some time (much more than a normal ride cycle) for it to actually stop completely. This might have been worse than just letting it stop mechanically as the cycle ends, but in the heat of the moment and without knowing what is going on with your ride, you can't fault the one at the controls for hitting e-stop.

As for the cable, I found a picture of the attachment at the top (http://www.johnnyupsidedown.com/events/events06/cp6a.jpg). I can't really tell how it is attached, but I am wondering if the attachment failed rather than the cable actually snapping.

I'm also wondering about the fence. That might just as easily been the result of them knocking it down to drive an emergency vehicle through. It isn't necessarily looking like that because of a cable landing on it.

Some of you are over speculating that the ride op actually took time to analyze what was happening and deduce the best way and safest way of stopping the ride. Dave summed up the most probably ride-op response exactly as it most likely went down. The ride-op saw something was wrong and hit the emergency stop.

I'm having a hard time believing that the cable annihilated that section of fence. At best I would guess the cable damaged a part of the fence (top most rail, perhaps) and then response crews pulled away the entire section to drive in that vehicle.

I'm at Dorney and can confirm that its miniature version pay-per-ride is still operating. So there doesn't appear to be a chain-like shot down like happened for Windseeker.

If this is an S&S issue, it's a really bad business move. What other park, especially Cedar Fair, is going to buy an S&S ride if there isn't some reasonable assurance of parts being available.

I hate to see these incidents occurr, they're bad for business and therefore bad for investors and Cedar Poiny fans alike.

Well, I was there the day before it happened, and at the hole at the top where the cord connects, my friend (who doesn't visit very often) pointed out that it was smoking. I told her not to worry because I thought that the ride always does that. I am 99% sure everything was fine, but do you think this could of resulted in the cord overheating and eventually snapping?

Another update:

http://www.cleveland.com/travel/index.ssf/2014/07/witness_to_skyhaw...nt_at.html

JUnderhill said:
A fan forum is definitely the best place to research what type of problems an amusement ride has had in the past. We are all obviously experts, and mechanical engineers that can explain the exact circumstances of past ride troubles.

Despite being "just" a fan website, you'd be surprised at the experience and knowledge we have here, including people who work in the industry and those who can confidently speak to ATSM standard.

^^^That "smoke" is nothing to worry about. I highly doubt it had something to do with last night.