16 thrill seekers injured after crash on ride

ON JUNE 2, 2015 visitors were removed from the Smiler ride after a warning light indicated a fault.

Staff sent a test train around the track, but it didn’t make it around. Due to a breakdown in communication, staff did not realise this carriage was still sitting on the track.

Passengers were let back on but as the first carriage made its way around, the computer system stopped it because it showed something was blocking the track.

Engineers were still not aware that there was a fifth carriage sitting on the track and overrode a fault which had been detected by the computer system, sending the ride crashing into an empty carriage with the force of a ‘90mph car crash.’

At least 16 were injured and five were seriously hurt.

Leah Washington from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Vicky Balch from

Leyland, Lancashire, were both forced to undergo leg amputations as a result of the horror crash.

Joe Pugh also from Barnsley and Daniel Thorpe, 28, from Buxton, also suffered serious leg injuries, along with 49-year-old Chandaben Chauhan.

The trapped ride-goers had to wait more than four hours to be freed from the crumpled carriage while rescue workers battled to reach them as they sat 25ft in the air at an angle of about 45 degrees, pinned in by the mangled metal.

Prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Bernard Thorogood said that although there had been ‘a number of human errors,’ the ‘fault is with the employers,’ and not individuals.

The prosecutor went on to say that none of the four engineers involved in working on the Smiler ‘had the full picture or understanding of conditions on the ride.’