Tragic ride accident at Ohio State Fair

This is so horrible, and exactly why I refuse to ever ride temporary fair rides that get disassembled, transported, and reassembled so many times.

Hence why I don't and never did ride fair/carnival rides.

I get nervous riding rides even at parks that only have harnesses and no seat belts. That secondary safety device gives me a much more warm and fuzzy.

Few years ago Diamond Back at KI only had restraints and no belts, cedar point always had belts with restraints.

God bless the victims in this horrible accident.

Anytime a tragedy such as this happens, especially at a well known venue like the Ohio State Fair, everyone jumps to blame SOMEONE, as long as it isn't them. Unfortunately, this was likely a freak accident that was, for all practical reasons, an act of God.
Maybe I'm biased as I was a cattle exhibitor at the fair for 12 years, but I hope that, after Governor Kasich's mandatory checks are made, that the fair will not be held in the publics eye as negligent, and will continue on as a fun place to take the family.

Having seen some more pictures of the ride after the accident. It appears there are no seat belts between the seat and the OTSR on it. I would say that the severity of the accident could have been lessened as it would have likely kept the two occupants ejected in the gondola.

And some additional aimless speculation after watching the video a few more times; I would agree with what RCMAC said about it hitting the diamond plate. It appears that the retractable floor possibly moved up and out of the full retracted position.

I just saw a news article that there are 11 of these in the U.S. and the ride manufacture asked them all be closed until an investigation is complete. Of the 11 one is at Knotts and one at California Great America. http://www.10news.com/news/ride-at-belmont-park-in-san-diego-among-...r-accident

Some teenage girls in line said they heard the ride strike something. The operator hit the mechanism to stop it, and that's when it broke apart. It sounded like it did hit something on the downward swing. I'm going to CP tomorrow. I love the Maxair and Skyhawk. I'm not sure I can ride them after seeing what happened.

Eh purely speculating... I'm sure the ride DID hit something, but after whatever failed happened. The retractable floor seems to cross the direction of the ride swing, I doubt the floor coming up was the cause. I've seen pics on other sites of the steel actually being torn away, far from the bolts, so I'm thinking metal fatigue since it seems as if it failed on the downswing.

Also, anyone who has watched SVU or studied 30 seconds of criminal justice know that "eyewitness" accounts are often horribly off. I saw an interview with a girl who said people were flying off on the upswing before the accident; not trying to make fun of this girl who was clearly traumatized but the brain can play tricks on you.

We'll see what the investigators uncover.

I feel so bad for the family of the deceased and the injured. The kid that was killed just signed up for the Marines. Very sad.

Pete said:

This sure seems like everything was assembled right to pass inspection but some hidden crack or fatigued area gave way.

And I think this will honestly be what is part of the problem here with this incident. While some are saying it appears to have struck part of the platform, the arm that is attached to the sweep seems to have sheared off. From pictures I have seen the sweep is still bolted to the arm that is attached to the seats. Just below the bolting is where the arm broke off from the sweep showing that it had nothing to do with any bolts that failed.

Pete said:

I wonder how often the carnival rides are stripped down and tested like CP does every off season.

I can't speak for all companies but with Bates Brothers, one of the largest companies, they have a huge storage building where they breakdown all the rides in the winter similar to what Cedar Point does and inspects them. I would like to point out that Cedar Point is definitely at the top of the game when it comes to winter inspections. The level at which they do it is not the norm in the seasonal industry though. I have worked for many parks (in some capacity) that do not have a winter rehab program and a lot of states don't even have a governing body to oversee ride safety in the state. Ohio is one of the leading states when it comes to ride inspections, so much so that Disney actually modeled their program after the way Ohio does it.

ValravnCP said:

This is so horrible, and exactly why I refuse to ever ride temporary fair rides that get disassembled, transported, and reassembled so many times.

Aside from the part of getting disassembled (to a point) they are most of the time the same model that you ride at the parks. Most of Cedar Point's flat rides are just the park models of the portable trailer models. They are the exact same for most of them with the exception of having "feet" under the ride instead of a trailer. In the winter Cedar Point's models get disassembled the same way as the trailer models. A lot of smaller amusement parks actually have the trailer model with the wheels removed and the trailer covered up. The best example of this are kiddie rides like those in Camp Snoopy and Kiddie Kingdom.

There are many challenges facing the outdoor showman these days, and one of the biggest is financial. It's tough to run a carnival with ever increasing insurance, labor, and fuel costs. So what I've noticed is many companies have consolidated and have relocated from the north and the east coast to Florida. There they can play dates year round, essentially not allowing for an "off-season". Places like Cedar Point and shows like Bates may have the luxury of stripping and rehabbing rides in the winter, but I believe southern shows have chosen to stay busy all year. It's the only way they can keep their heads above water. I've also heard that at the end of this season, in spite of all their efforts, Bates Bros. will be folding for good. So there ya go.

May I please, please, once again speak to those who have stated that carnival rides are treated differently that those in amusement parks? Here in Ohio the exact same team of qualified inspectors is in charge of both permanent and traveling installations. The exact same specifications are used to determine if an amusement ride is safe for public consumption no matter where it's located.
I'm so sick and tired of seeing comments from social media users and even "respected" websites stating that portable rides are dangerous and pleading with readers to only trust rides found at permanent amusement parks. Seriously, such nonsense can't be further from the truth. Each and every ride erected for whatever reason and for whatever length of time is subjected to the same professional scrutiny. All in all, the industry is not shady or sketchy. All parties have too much to lose if safety falls from being their absolute number one priority.

This tragic accident was a one in a billion million occurance, and although official findings haven't been announced, we can see there was a failure in the structure. What everyone will learn from this is that further steps need to be taken to examine structural issues and if it means pulling a piece off the road for a couple of weeks every so often then so be it. Here in Ohio I've heard some are calling for X-ray devices to be present at all shows and that each piece of every ride should be examined in that manner on a daily basis. Hmmm.
I guess I would in turn ask those people if they drive their cars everyday, take public transportation, and put their kids on school busses, because if so they'd seem ok with trusting some mechanic somewhere with their family's safety.

I also hear a lot of people say that the fair itself should close out of respect for those that are injured or dead. They should stop to think that the fair is far more than just a carnival midway and is full of vendors, entertainers, exhibitors, and families who are supported by such events. Closing the fair for the rest of the run would help no one.

Attendance today was probably the lowest I've ever seen. A rainy afternoon and a kid-specific concert didn't help matters, but I hope our great fair isn't faced with a general reduction in the public's trust. From comments I've read it looks like it could be an uphill battle, but I sincerely hope not.

RCMAC said:

Seriously, such nonsense can't be further from the truth.

I don't necessarily doubt that, but it would be interesting to see some data on this. Something along the lines of number of accidents per hour of operation, comparing "permanent" and mobile installations such as these.

If the floor came up during the cycle, wouldn't another carriage have hit it on the swing back to the right? I know the video cuts off, but I assume we would have heard about that as well.

This was a horrible accident, for those involved as well as those who witnessed it. Hopefully, investigations find out there was little to nothing that could have been done and nobody has neglected anything...

RMCAC, with all due respect, there have been way more accidents in the last year on portable rides in the USA than there have been on permanent rides (not counting waterparks). While that may be due to the fact that there may be more carnival rides than permanent rides (I actually have no idea about this), it still shows. I think that it's laughable how inferior the American fairs are compared to the European ones, specifically the ones in Germany, in both safety and quality.

99er said:

I can't speak for all companies but with Bates Brothers, one of the largest companies, they have a huge storage building where they breakdown all the rides in the winter similar to what Cedar Point does and inspects them.

Shout out for Bates Bros. from my childhood hometown before I made Sandusky my adult hometown! I have zero practical experience in the industry and cannot talk intelligently about the process like many here can and have... but Bates has a pretty solid track record and always provided some of the best ride entertainment to all the carnivals I went to as a kid in the 70s and 80s.

On another point - I heard a few of the eye-witness account sound bytes on the news this morning. I think one of the uninjured Fireball riders who was on the ride when it broke apart said (I am obviously paraphrasing here) that the pendulum was swinging very close to the ground and appeared to get closer with each successive pass until it eventually got too close to clear the floor at the bottom-most point of the swing.

That "eye-witness account" may sway things in favor of the rising floor theory discussed above - which if you were on the actual ride at the time would be perceived as the pendulum swinging lower on each pass rather than the floor rising up.

I'm no expert and as others have said, eye witness accounts are some of the least reliable evidence, but it still offers food for thought.

Oh, hi, sorry I'm late...

I spent the evening at the Ohio State Fair. Unfortunately there is literally "nothing to see here"; the Fireball is surrounded by semitrailers and the main midway is roped off at both ends. The kiddieland midway was open, and by late evening Belle City's Sky Wheel was running there. Media indicated that 28 rides were open (I didn't bother to count) and that three had failed inspections and would not be operating. My observation was that those three rides were either fixed or sloughed, as I didn't see any in the "secondary" midway that were not operating. Didn't see any obvious holes where rides had been removed, either.

As for the incident...I am going to concentrate on the "what" and try to stay away from the "why" in an effort to keep speculation to a minimum. I want to talk about what we do know, what we can observe, and perhaps add in a few reminders of what we DON'T know. Okay? Good.

First , there is an excellent write-up on this over a Parkscope, and Alan has been keeping it updated. Go read it; it's pretty comprehensive and includes some useful information about the ride: http://www.parkscope.net/2017/07/what-we-know-2017-ohio-state-fair.html

What we know is that on Wednesday evening, the KMG Fireball owned by Amusments of America suffered what appears to be a catastrophic structural failure resulting in the loss of an entire passenger carrying gondola with four seats. One rider was killed, seven others were hospitalized. Photos that have surfaced since the incident show the gondola support tube with a very nasty ragged edge at the point where it literally broke in half.

The ride was brought to the fairgrounds a week ago, and I believe it was the ride's first date in Ohio this year, so it had to be inspected by the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Because the State Fair is a high profile event, all rides are inspected before the opening of the fair by the Department of Agriculture even if they are already certified for operation in Ohio for the current season. Also, the State Fair uses a third party private inspection team which conducts an insurance inspection and monitors operations on the midway. This is in addition to the normal maintenance and inspection program handled by Amusements of America's own staff. So we know the ride was independently inspected and (†) approved by at least three different organizations before operations started on Wednesday.

I downloaded a copy of the incident video. The version I have was downloaded from Facebook and is 181 frames at 30 FPS and has a resolution of 400x400 pixels, stretched vertically to an approximate 3:4 aspect ratio. At frame 110, the soon-to-be-dropped gondola is obscured on the far side of the ride as it travels through its bottom dead center position on the swing. At frame 118, the gondola support arm comes up high enough in the frame that the broken end is visible, that is, the gondola has fallen off at this point. At Frame 120, the gondola begins to appear and at 122 there is a pair of legs sticking out at an odd angle. By frame 127 we can see the gondola falling, but it is falling from a position higher than the broken support tube at frame 118. At frame 142, the gondola drops out of frame and a passenger appears to drop from the near side gondola as the ride approaches the top of its swing. At frame 153 we can see a second rider falling from the ride. The camera quickly tilts downward and by frame 174 all we can see is the trailer frame. We do not see the two riders land, not that their landing position would be visible from this position anyway.

All of this is useful for understanding what appears to have happened, and it explains why some of the things we observe in the video can be true while still refuting some of the claims that are floating around right now. To that end:

First, the undamaged ride did not hit the floor or the trailer. The ride is designed so that the ride will clear the floor when the floor is in its "up" position, although riders' legs may not.

Second, there is no reason to believe that the restraints failed. Photos of the scene after the riders were removed show the failed gondola lying on the ground face-up, with the shoulder bars neatly laid nearby. The shoulder bars appear to have been cut at the axle to remove them from the ride in order to extricate the riders from their seats. The riders who went flying through the air were not thrown from the gondola that was dropped, and a second video taken after the incident actually shows one of the riders still secured in his seat in the broken gondola. Instead, it appears from the motion of the gondola in the video that when the gondola detached from the ride, it was almost immediately struck by one or more of the remaining gondolas on the ride and carried aloft by the ride. Because the ride was rotating as well as swinging, the "catching" action of the ride changed almost immediately, dropping the detached gondola. When the damaged gondola struck the remaining gondola, it did serious damage. Besides being a mechanism of injury for riders in both, it damaged the seats on the still attached gondola, damaging or removing the metal tubing from the side of the seat. This tubing is what serves as a lateral support on the seat, and as the seat rises and rotates, that sudden absence of lateral containment allowed the riders in the damaged seats to slide out sideways. We know this is possible due to a previous incident on a ReMix which uses the same seat design. In that incident, a rider came out of an undamaged seat, resulting in changes to the design of the containment rail on the side of the seat.

Published photos show a jagged break in the gondola support tube well below the bend in the tube, and to my eyes well above the point where the rectangular gondola support tube is welded to the round tube that forms the gondola chassis. I have seen some claims that this was a weld failure, but to me it does not look like any weld exists at this point on the tube. From the video, it appears the tube failed when the ride hit its point of maximum downward force on that tube. The tube that failed is a part of the assembly which is normally removed from the ride during transport, but the assembly did not fail at the connection point (so this does not appear to be an assembly error). Because the tube is not normally removed from the gondola, and because the failure did not happen at a joint in the tube, I would expect this point to receive only a visual inspection for cracks and corrosion. To the best of my knowledge, KMG has not identified this as a potential failure point, and does not have any specific non-destructive testing (NDT) requirements for this tube.

So if the tube was this badly cracked that it failed, why did three inspectors fail to catch it?

This is the one place where I can only speculate. When a steel tube begins cracking, the crack will often form on the inside of the tube wall. Once that cracking begins, repeated stress on the tube will cause the crack to propagate. As the crack gets longer, the motion in the tube, small enough to be nearly imperceptible, but enough to cause the crack to grow, increases, increasing the speed of the crack development. But on the surface, nothing is visible because the crack hasn't broken through the outer surface, nor has it damaged the paint. Until one day, the part fails catastrophically. The good news is that these cracks can generally be detected long before they are dangerous using magnetic particle or ultrasound testing, so usually it is sufficient to perform such tests at the end of the operating season to detect any cracks and get them fixed before the next operating season. But to do that requires that the proper NDT be performed on the tube. Because NDT procedures will only reveal problems in places where the NDT is performed, it is critical to know where a problem is likely to develop so that testing can be done in the right place and at the right time to detect the problem. In this case, in the 20 years or so that the Afterburner/Fireball has been around, none of these gondola support tubes has ever shown a crack or failed. KMG's analysis of the ride did not reveal that tube to be of special concern, so there were no special NDT requirements. Now it is up to the investigative team to figure out why that crack appeared, and for KMG to decide how to address it on the remaining rides.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thank you Dave for your time and careful consideration. Speaking plainly is like a cool breeze on a hot day.

I appreciate it.

Well done Dave.

Still sending Prayers for everyone invloved and those who witnessed it.