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Thread: Four people die in Dreamworld accident

  1. #41
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    Yeah OB, I'm sure something WAS out of spec. So fix it and move on.

    On daytime TV just now they were saying there's to be a permanent memorial on the site....
    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.



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    Quote Originally Posted by enf View Post
    Yeah OB, I'm sure something WAS out of spec. So fix it and move on.

    On daytime TV just now they were saying there's to be a permanent memorial on the site....
    Yes, i see that.
    First good step (although it could be considered a controversial idea inside a Theme Park?)
    (It could also be looked at, as they don't trust that ride anymore?? And seriously, could they afford a second tragic event, it would spell the end of the park for good)
    I'd say there will be more to come, like 10% of all Gate Fee's to go to a Fund for the affected families

    If that wasn't included as part of the re-opening strategy, i'd be very surprised.
    What better way to gain the publics support to patronise the park again.
    Last edited by ol' boy; 09-11-16 at 09:27 AM.
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    I don't think they'll have ANY trouble coaxing people back.
    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.

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    Quote Originally Posted by enf View Post
    I don't think they'll have ANY trouble coaxing people back.
    Choice of 3 Theme Parks, which shall we go to?.... Hmmmm probably not the one where a family was all but destroyed.
    I agree, after enough time it will no longer be in people's choice making radar (Just as Bali is after 2 Bombings)

    But if they somehow make the reopening a way to pay respects to the lives lost, it will go a long way to swaying peoples views
    Last edited by ol' boy; 09-11-16 at 11:20 AM.
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    Dreamworld parent company has announced the water raft ride will be dismantled, as they say, out of respect for the families of those who died.

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    Very sad indeed! Authorities surely are answerable for this horrible incident.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cthom View Post
    Very sad indeed! Authorities surely are answerable for this horrible incident.
    What authorities?

    It's the park operator that is answerable.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    What authorities?

    It's the park operator that is answerable.
    Yes surely I am talking about the park operators and the ones responsible of carrying out inspection of the park equipment. I saw the video and it seemed quite horrible what happened there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Dreamworld parent company has announced the water raft ride will be dismantled, as they say, out of respect for the families of those who died.
    I really cant see why the need to dismantle it, its like falling off a bike, people will always get back on no matter what previously happened, simply upgrade the water raft. I dont believe the decision to dismantle is out of respect, its more a butter up

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    I really cant see why the need to dismantle it, its like falling off a bike, people will always get back on no matter what previously happened, simply upgrade the water raft. I dont believe the decision to dismantle is out of respect, its more a butter up
    I'm thinking it's more along the lines of getting rid of it as it has a history of faults and it's too much of a liability risk to keep it operational.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mtv View Post
    Dreamworld parent company has announced the water raft ride will be dismantled, as they say, out of respect for the families of those who died.
    Probably to be sold to another theme park here in Oz or more than likely overseas where safety regs are more lax than in Oz (which would be hard to find IMHO)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick View Post
    I really cant see why the need to dismantle it,
    Maybe because, if someone was to be badly injured or die on that ride for a second time, that would be it for the Theme Park
    Just close the doors.

    I'd say the Insurance Company had a lot of say on the matter.
    And it's just a risk too high to take for the Theme Park owners, that ride was old when i was kid.

    So now they just bundled up the decision nicely as a move out of respect for the family.
    Covers up the shit nicely.
    Last edited by ol' boy; 09-11-16 at 07:58 PM.
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    From a news conference today , 3 safety audits will take place ,
    first a Australian company hired by theme park ,

    second a Australian company independent audit ,

    and third a overseas company independent audit .

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    There were a few company announcements yesterday.

    They were perfectly timed with the US election.....in the hope no one will notice them.

    A common practice with large corporations, got to keep shareholders happy......

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    Quote Originally Posted by Godzilla View Post
    There were a few company announcements yesterday.

    They were perfectly timed with the US election.....in the hope no one will notice them.

    A common practice with large corporations, got to keep shareholders happy......
    Definitely bigger corporations have their way of working but at the local level people will still remember that incident which might prove to be a final nail in the coffin.

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    With respect to those that dies in this tragedy, seems the backlash hasn't been good news for Ardent Leisure

    The hurricane caps off a tough year for Ardent, which also reported an audited full-year loss of $62.6 million on Thursday, compared with a $42.4 million profit for the 2016 year.
    They have also been affected by the Hurricane Harvey

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    Back in the news for all the wrong reasons again
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    And back again/still.



    Dreamworld inquest told safety device costing less than $3000 could have prevented tragedy

    Dreamworld engineering supervisor Wayne Cox previously told the inquest he was unaware there had been a number of breakdowns on the ride the day of the tragedy and first headed to the raft ride in the afternoon.
    In his statement to police on October 25, 2016, Mr Cox told officers it was just after 2pm that he heard there was a Code 6 on the Thunder River Rapids and a technician was required. A Code 6 was typically used to describe a breakdown or ride malfunction. But minutes later, they were radioed again, this time signalling there was a “Code 222 Blue” at the ride. “Code 222 Blue” typically means there is a medical emergency at the ride.


    After hearing that, Mr Cox and Scott Ritchie, the theme park’s engineering supervisor, immediately left the rides workshop, located on the other side of Dreamworld and closer to White Water World. In his statement, Mr Cox said the two men ran about two thirds of the way through the park before slowing to a walk “so as to not draw too much attention to ourselves and alarm the park guests”. In the few minutes it took the two to arrive at the Thunder River Rapids, the code had been upgraded to a “Code 222 Grey”, a medical emergency involving mechanics and one that required all staff to attend. Dreamworld’s first responders were already at the ride, wading into the water to try and save the four adults but it was too late. The raft had already crushed four people to death.


    An electrician was booked in to fix the ailing water pump on Dreamworld’s deadly ride two days after the tragedy, because the problem “didn’t sound urgent”.


    The inquest into the deaths of four visitors to the theme park was today told electrician Michael Takac, who worked on a section of the pumps that failed on the day of the tragedy, was booked in to looked at the machinery. Mr Takac, who works for the company Applied Electro that has maintained a number of Dreamworld’s rides since 2011, told the inquest he had been booked in to specifically work on the variable speed drives (VSDs) that powered the Thunder River Rapids water pumps. The failure of the pumps on October 25, 2016, caused the water levels to drop dangerously low, eventually causing the raft that was carrying Cindy Low, Roozi Araghi, Luke Dorsett and Kate Goodchild to flip. On June 15, 2016, Mr Takac headed to Dreamworld to conduct his annual check on the VSDs but was unable to complete the job. Mr Takac was unable to do a full test run of both VSDs because the ride’s south pump was down for maintenance. He finished the rest of his annual checklist and claims staff at Dreamworld told him “look, it’s running, the device is fine”. “So, we left it,” Mr Takac told the inquest.


    Four months later, the south pump would malfunction on the Thunder River Rapids ride again, causing the water level to drop and the raft to flip. A week before the Dreamworld tragedy, the theme park’s engineering supervisor Scott Ritchie emailed Mr Takac’s boss Dave Butler and said the Thunder River Rapids ride needed maintaining. The VSD on the ageing ride had suffered a number of “earth faults” in quick succession the week before the tragedy. Mr Takac said earth faults were “concerning” because “you don’t know what it’s related to”. “It’s a hard one to find,” he said.

    On October 22, Mr Ritchie emailed Mr Butler about the earth faults and the problem with their VSDs.

    “We have experienced an earth fault on two separate occasions and cannot fault the motor. We are back up and running now however the sooner you are able to get to site the better. I will get a PO (purchase order) sent first thing on Monday morning,” Mr Ritchie wrote.


    Three days later and hours before the incident, Mr Takac received a call from his boss asking him if he could go to Dreamworld to check out the ride. But Mr Takac was busy getting his phone fixed that day and told the inquest his boss said “it didn’t sound urgent”. Instead, Mr Butler organised for his electrician Mr Takac to attend Dreamworld on October 27 at 6am, emailing Mr Ritchie back at 7am on October 25.
    Hours later, the south pump malfunctioned again, causing the water levels to drop.


    Every time the pumps failed on the Thunder River Rapids — the fourth fault with the pump in a few days — the theme park reset the ride.


    Mr Takac told the inquest it was not something he would have done. “My advice would be to stop the machine and not use it, to investigate deeper what the problem is … It’d open up a can of worms but a lot more testing needs to be done,” he said.

    A safety upgrade of the Dreamworld Thunder River Rapids Ride, shown in an undated image, was missing a key measure.

    Earlier today, the inquest was told nine months before the tragedy, the ageing Thunder River Rapids ride was given a $19,000 upgrade.
    The inquest was shown a report that identified the “primary cause” of the incident, and details of the less than $3000 safety feature that could have addressed it. A year before the fatal incident, an external engineering and machinery company called Products for Industry (PFI) was hired to upgrade the weathered ride. Emails and invoices shown at the inquest detailed exactly what the theme park paid for.
    Dreamworld first approached PFI in August 2015 about stopping rafts from slipping backwards, to upgrade its main control panel and to modify sensors to check if chains on the conveyor belt were broken. After months of back and forth between the theme park and PFI, those upgrades were finished in February 2016 and Dreamworld paid a little over $19,000 for the work.


    Earlier today, the inquest focused on another of Dreamworld’s popular attractions, the Log Ride which operated similar to the Thunder River Rapids using water pumps and a conveyor system.
    PFI senior engineer Matthew Sullivan told the inquest the company had worked on the Log Ride back in 2013 where the focus of their work was installing a water safety level system at the bottom of the slide.
    The system was integral to the ride, because it meant the water level would determine whether the ride would brake and subsequently slow down the log raft. If the water was too low, the raft would keep going.
    If there wasn’t enough water at the bottom of the log slide, the situation could become “potentially dangerous”, Mr Sullivan said. The system installed by PFI meant that if the water wasn’t high enough, sensors would send information to a “programmable logic controller” that would then signal the computer and ride’s operating system to immediately shut down the conveyor belt. While the Log Ride was fitted with this system years ago, when PFI was hired in 2016 to upgrade the Thunder River Rapids ride,the water level issue wasn’t raise, and the same system wasn’t request by the theme park.


    In a damning expert report by Safety Related Control Systems, the company concluded the “primary cause” of the incident was the lack of a suitable safety rated water level detection system added to the upgraded conveyor system. The report added the water safety level system could “easily” have been provided at a “minimal” cost of $2000 to $3000. “Had such a water level detection system have been in place it would have brought the conveyor to a safe stop as soon as the water had fallen to a crucial level thereby likely avoiding a collision,” the report said. When questioned if it would’ve been possible for PFI to install a water safety level system back in February 2016, Mr Sullivan said yes. Despite that, Mr Sullivan said Dreamworld had never told PFI if was interested in a safe water level system. In emails, PFI outlined a “stage two” of upgrades to the ride where it would eventually install sensors that would “detect the presence of a raft at the bottom of the conveyor”. If the sensors picked up a raft, the conveyor would shut down — something that didn’t happen on October 25, 2016.


    In a damning report it was concluded the “primary cause” of the incident was the lack of a suitable safety rated water level detection system.
    PFI was also questioned about its upgrade to the emergency stop buttons and control panel.
    The work completed by PFI started on February 8, 2016 and was completed within a week. It included completely replacing the local motor control panel with a new stainless steel model and replacing the wiring. The company also upgraded the emergency stop button at the unload area, where people left the rafts. This button was the only button that could instantaneously bring the conveyor belt to a complete stop. Inside the operating room, where workers sat at the main control panel, was another emergency stop button. However that button in the main control panel, although it looked completely the same, did not perform the same function as the one at the unload area instead only stopping a water pump which would not bring the ride to a complete stop.
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    very sad indeed . Like many industrial accidents , they occur because situations at the time allow a series of "gates" to be open , and if any of those "gates" were closed the incident would not have occurred and maybe not have been so serious.

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    Hindsight is wonderful. It does look very damning for Dreamworld, though, given the warnings of what could occur. Prior to the incident, decisions made were based on what "might" happen in regards to the warnings. The fact that the ride had been unreliable and still in use is damning factor. Should have been place out of service and fixed.
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