Dreamworld ride’s litany of breaches detailed
A LEADING safety inspector has told the Dreamworld inquest he could have issued dozens of breach notices for the Thunder River Rapids ride if it had continued to operate after the 2016 tragedy.
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s principal inspector Ian Stewart wrote a prohibition notice for the ride during his investigation into the disaster.
The move was largely academic as the ride was never used again, but Mr Stewart yesterday told Coroner James McDougall he discovered so many concerns he could have written at least 80 improvement notices if the ride had still been operating.
He cited concerns with the ride’s control panel, water level controls, monitoring systems, a gap at the end of the conveyor belt and a reliance on human response to emergency situations rather than automatic action.
He also said he had “no confidence at all in what Dreamworld had in place to save lives” if people fell into the water on the ride.
He said there should have been automatic controls to prevent the tragedy.
Mr Stewart spent 10 days at Dreamworld after the tragedy that killed Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett, Roozi Araghi and Cindy Low.
He said ride operators on duty had “a lot of tasks” to monitor in general, let alone in the event of an emergency.
“You cannot rely on administrative control,” he said.
“No matter how you are trained as a human being you can make mistakes.”
The inquest has previously heard that operators at the Thunder River Rapids were compromised by having to perform over a dozen tasks in the space of a single minute.