Last week, the Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers was involved in a crash resulting in 16 people being injured. News has recently come to light that one of the guests in the front row has had to have her leg amputated, resulting in a life changing injury from the impact of the crash.
The park itself has only reopened today, having been closed throughout the entire weekend as investigations continue as to how this crash occurred. It is expected that as a result of the closure the park was losing around half a million pounds every day.
The crash also saw the Saw ride in Thorpe Park shut down “for the foreseeable future” leading to questions that both attractions were potentially running off of similar systems and could have the same issue (though it is likely just in place as a precaution). Both Rattlesnake and Dragons Fury at Chessington World of Adventures were also closed temporarily as a result of the incident.
What happens next?
Nobody can point the finger at Merlin Entertainment at this stage, accidents happen all of the time and it is now down to the investigation team to figure out exactly what the fault was. The fact that the coaster was only moving at 20mph at the time is incredibly lucky for those involved.
As you can see, the result of this incident has had a huge impact on the theme parks of Britain and will no doubt impact attendance across not just Alton Towers but all parks owned by Merlin as the important summer months approach.
It is clear that Merlin have done everything they can to ensure that the right things are happening and the right precautions are being taken to make sure that something like this does not happen again.
Ryan has been attending theme parks since as long as he can remember and his first proper memory comes from when he was just three years old sitting in Main Street USA drinking a Nesquik milkshake from a carton while the piano was being played outside Casey’s Corner.
