Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers - carriage collision

On the grapevine, heard from a friend who has a brother who works there.

They heard it was human error. The ride was fixed for a sensor error early in the morning and an empty car was sent round prior to a car with passenegers ( who were the ones in the accident ).

The previous empty car was not weighted correctly and so when released at the last braking stop it did not have enough momentum to carry it up the last "hill" into the station braking point and slipped back down the hill to end up in the position we saw the crash, as when the car people people was released there should have been an empty track.

Obviously if this is the case no auto sensor system was in place to detect such a problem, because if there was, it would have overridden the car release instruction and they would not have crashed into the ghost car.

Anyway as i say this is just hearsay and may well be utter rubbish but sort of makes sense.

In my mind surely only emply cars can be sent round in some sort of engineering mode, so how a full car was sent right afterwards without the emply car being back in the station doesnt make sense.
 
There's a bigger picture with more Firemen which features a couple of my mates. One of them was really in the thick of it and is still having Counselling sessions.

What from the smiler crash? I'd have thought they'd have seen much worse during their duties.
 
What from the smiler crash? I'd have thought they'd have seen much worse during their duties.

They've seen much worse but usually they get people out pretty quickly however with this it took around 4 hours and he felt helpless.
His also has two daughters around the same age.
 
I still don't know why sprung buffers weren't fitted to the cars as protection for a last resort. Having those present would have lessened the injuries substantially.

Bad design fault if you ask me.
 
I came back from alton towers a few days ago, supposedly the day before we was there they started sending round empty cars for the first time since the crash. Great time to go, the every ride was pretty much always full but the queues were only one run wait max.
 
How much are the victims getting paid out to them?

Despite being just 17 years old, Leah, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, can expect a payout of between £84,700 and £111,100 for losing her leg - according to judge's guidelines and previous awards.

Not a lot is it but I expect it will run into a million because Alton Towers want to look good..
 
I'm sorry but I would be insulted if i ended up with 100k. You think it would basically stop me from pursuing the career i want so in reality they should pay me a lifetime of wages in the industry I'm aiming to as they would have crushed my dreams and aims.
 
I'm sorry but I would be insulted if i ended up with 100k. You think it would basically stop me from pursuing the career i want so in reality they should pay me a lifetime of wages in the industry I'm aiming to as they would have crushed my dreams and aims.

We've already had this discussion. Yes it rules out some physical careers but the loss of a leg won't hold you back from the vast majority.
 
As other people have said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see a vast difference between what we would expect the court to award and what the actual pay out is. Alton Towers have handled this all very well from the get go, it would cost them a fortune in bad PR if they were to drop the ball at this stage. I imagine with some smart investment those poor people will be set for life.

Not that it in any way makes up for the loss of a limb of course.
 
I'm sorry but I would be insulted if i ended up with 100k. You think it would basically stop me from pursuing the career i want so in reality they should pay me a lifetime of wages in the industry I'm aiming to as they would have crushed my dreams and aims.

Demz de rulez.

I've said before on here that I work in Claims and daily I see ridiculous payouts for injuries I thought would get a lot more.
A lot of us are also misguided by friends who tell us their family/friend got got X amount for an injury when they in fact got X/10.
At least 5 times I've heard people adding a nought on to what they actually got, it goes on a lot and I've seen it on here several times.
The massive payouts are cerebral palsy cases and I've personally known an 8 million payout.
 
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