Report: Ride owner didn’t break any laws
The company whose towering thrill ride was so severely rusted that it flew into pieces at the Ohio State Fair this summer, killing a man and injuring seven others, did nothing wrong under the Ohio Revised Code, the state agency that inspected it has concluded.
“The Amusement Ride Safety Division is not recommending taking any proposed administrative action against (ride owner) Amusements of America at this time,” Chief Inspector Michael Vartorella wrote in a memo dated Oct. 17 to Agriculture Director David Daniels.
Asked about that conclusion Friday, when the department released the document, Department of Agriculture spokesman Mark Bruce said: “There’s no other way for me to say it: There’s no violation of the law.”
“As indicated by the issuance of the permit,” Vartorella concluded in the memo, the Fire Ball “... was in compliance with requirements of Ohio law at the time of inspection.” That inspection concluded the same day the Fire Ball broke, apparently from excessive interior rusting.
“The people of Ohio should be shocked that an agency responsible for monitoring the safety of our children concluded that this ride was safety compliant,” said Rex Elliott, an attorney for Keziah Lewis, 19, a sophomore at the University of Cincinnati who was thrown from the ride and severely injured.
“We believe the evidence of a cracked and severely corroding high speed ride demonstrates a very different conclusion that should have been detected before clearing this ride.”
Ken Martin, an amusementride safety consultant from Virginia, said that despite rigorous licensing requirements, it’s not uncommon for ride owners to face no consequences from state regulators when amusement rides break, injuring or killing riders.
“The industry has a powerful, powerful lobby,” Martin said. “There’s room for change.”
The Dispatch reported in October that state ride inspector Ron Dean couldn’t say whether he saw a large crack exactly at the point in the Fire Ball’s steel arm where it broke. Photographs taken by a fairgoer minutes before the ride failed clearly show the crack. It’s unclear whether the crack was visible during the inspection.
More photographs of the ride were released by the department Friday along with the report, including many showing what appears to be severe rust on electrical panels that were part of the critical safety restraint system that locked and unlocked riders’ over-the-shoulder safety bars.
Martin told The Dispatch in October that there was enough rust visible to inspectors that they should have prevented the ride from operating at the state fair until repairs were made.