Back On track
How staff at Alton towers are trying to put the tragedy of the Smiler crash behind them…
Alton Towers is the UK’s largest theme park and, in 2015, it was the scene of a devastating accident that saw two carriages collide on its popular Smiler ride.
Catastrophic failure
The force was the equivalent to a car crashing at 90mph and left 16 injured and two teens needing partial leg amputations. A criminal court case found Alton Towers guilty of a ‘catastrophic failure’ of health and safety, and fined operator Merlin £5m.
‘What had happened was completely the opposite of what we’re here for – it’s been absolutely terrible for everybody,’ says Alton Towers’ general manager Ian Crabbe. ‘For me, personally, it was tragic in the sense that, in my senior role, I was responsible for injuring people.’
After the crash, visitor numbers dropped and now the park is banking on a new £16m ride, based on the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man, to bring them back.
This documentary goes behind the scenes as the new wooden rollercoaster is built with an 18m-high effigy that bursts into flames as the trains hurtle through it at up to 46mph.
Eye-watering cost
With safety at the forefront of everyone’s minds, however, the flames are only an illusion and the train is tested at least 500 times with crash test dummies to make sure it runs correctly.
But, as engineers make their final adjustments to the carriages, each which cost as much as a new Bentley, the eye-watering £16m cost is beginning to panic Ian. Will the new Wicker Man ride bring back the visitors?
‘It’s a lot of money,’ says Ian. ‘You have to get off a coaster thinking, “Wow!”, and if it doesn’t succeed like that, then we’ve failed. But my hope is Wicker Man will deliver a new set of experiences – we have to get it absolutely right!’