Last week in the news round-up, I linked to the story from China about an accident at a space-themed centrifuge ride that claimed the lives of six theme park visitors. This week, Chinese authorities have "detained" 11 park maintenance and operations workers, as part of the investigation.
I don't know what, specifically, is meant by "detained" in China - whether that means simply that the workers were held for a few hours for questioning, or that they are being jailed until the investigation's complete. Nor is the Shanghai news report clear on exactly which authorities were doing the detaining.
The investigation has ruled out sabotage, and now is focusing on a mechanical failure. I've not been to China and, obviously, never been on this ride. But from the reported descriptions, it sounds something like Epcot's Mission: Space, a spinning space-themed ride where visitors ride in separate capsules. Apparently, something broke on the Chinese ride, one unit stopped and others crashed into it, ejecting some riders and crushing others. Horrible.
It's hard for me to imagine how a modern amusement ride could fail so spectacularly and tragically, not with the industry knowledge that is available on how to run such a ride safely, and reliably so. Since this ride did fail, it appears that somewhere along the line, either that knowledge either wasn't passed along to the people in position to implement it or the commitment to implement that knowledge was not instilled among enough of this park's employees. Ultimately, those are management failures, too.
Thoughts?
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I think it is up to the park for responsibility, but I repeat: Mission Space did not fail or has failed in the past when individuals were injured.
I thought the same thing, Robert. I know China is often stereotyped as a cheap goods manufacturer, and in some ways that's true. But when it comes to thrill rides or other pieces of technology involving safety factors, China is, at the very least, on par with most industrial countries.
You have to wonder what happened.
This is actually a common failure mode for centrifuges. Mechanical materials stress is a huge concern because of the high g forces exerted on very heavy loads. On a coaster you have the high g's, but not for such a sustained period, and on a much lighter load.
This is a very, freaky accident and I think it will affect the attendance of theme park goers planning on visiting parks in China. Although China does have the reputation for being... well... "It's made in China, whatdaya expect?"
when it comes to attractions that attract international visitors, then China can be pretty high quality-- like I said, very, freaky accident.
I wonder if this is one of those dinky little theme parks (which don't get as much maintenance) or a more renowned Chinese theme park that attracts lots of international visitors like Disney Shanghai (which has a higher reputation to uphold)
The 11 workers that have been detained are another story. If this is a high enough profile event they could be made an example of. A death sentence wouldn't be out of the ordinary for anyone made responsible for something like this.
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