Alton Towers face prosecution

[Cleoriff]

The owner of Alton Towers is to be prosecuted over the Smiler rollercoaster which left 5 people seriously injured

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35658850

I am really pleased at this decision. If this encourages other parks to take safety more seriously we would hopefully see less horrific accidents of this type

[Bambino]

I'm not surprised by that decision in the least. Absolutely correct to hold them accountable. People's lives were changed forever because of this.

[Cleoriff]

I know we always say incidents like this shouldn't affect our lives.

It affected me as I had two family members who had been on this ride 2 weeks before. They obviously were lucky.

[jonsie]

Quite right. I know there has to be an investigation but why does it take so long....

[Cleoriff]

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@jonsie wrote:

Quite right. I know there has to be an investigation but why does it take so long....

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Exactly The accident happened June 2nd last year. The court case isn't till April 22nd...

[MI5]

Good.

[viridis]

I hope they scrap that thing, no roller coaster should ever need to be winched together when built due to being off by 6 inches.

[PhoneChanger]

@viridis they won't scrap a £16M ride, they have already announced their aim is to re-open the attraction later this year.

The issue at hand, and for what they will be held accountable for, is that staff executed a manual over-ride on a safety system which was triggered due to the stalled train.

They have already made a number of improvements for this year, which is the addition of restart switches and triggers which have to be done manually at key sections of the track (and outside as well, so they can't just check the cameras and re-start it), if all buttons haven't been reset then they cannot restart the ride, hopefully minimizing the risk going forward.

Whilst the incident should never have happened, Alton Towers and Nick Varney have handled with situation extremely well, they closed the park, they immediately provided aid and financial assistance to those involved and continue to do so to this day.

[viridis]

Sorry, but I'd say a ride that bolts flung off and the track separated due to stresses of poor construction has no place at alton towers.

[Cleoriff]

Also, it is very convenient that Alton Towers stated 'the crash was caused by human error'.

This shifts blame, allows them to 'sack' the staff members ....whilst working hard on their roller coaster to ensure it is kept running and earns them massive profits. Cynical? I don't think so.