Crack noticed before ride failure
The only photograph the State Highway Patrol refused to release as part of its investigation into the
deadly Fire Ball ride failure at the Ohio State Fair clearly shows a large crack going across the steel arm of a gondola before it broke apart.
The photo was taken by fairgoer Brian Bury just hours after state inspectors determined the ride was safe and operators began allowing riders on it — and minutes before it broke off. It shows a crack that appears to almost exactly follow the pattern of the sheared-off
metal arm after it snapped in mid-ride July 26.
Tyler Jarrell, 18, was thrown to his death and seven others were injured, some critically.
The crack in the photo ran side-to-side across the box steel arm, inches above where it is welded onto the four-seat gondola that carried the riders.
“It’s at the exact fracture point, there is no question about it. It is the prelude to exactly what happened,” said Rex Elliott, an attorney representing Keziah Lewis, 19, a sophomore at the University of Cincinnati who was Jarrell’s girlfriend. She was seated next to him and is still hospitalized in critical condition with injuries she sustained when she was tossed out of the gondola when it broke off.
Despite an Ohio Public Records Act request from The Dispatch, the State Highway Patrol refused Friday to release the photo to the newspaper, citing copyright concerns and the advice of the state attorney general’s office. The Dispatch independently obtained a copy of the photo, and Bury agreed to allow the newspaper to publish it “as a catalyst to prevent future mishaps and tragedies.”The ride was inspected by the Ohio Department of Agriculture only hours before part of it violently broke off. The inspectors told investigators they didn’t see anything, according to a Highway Patrol investigation.
“There is evidence of corrosion on other of the arms that didn’t break off, so it is absolutely the logical conclusion that these things just don’t magically appear, they appear over time. It’s crystal clear that people missed this from the time they were inspected to the time it broke off,” Elliott said.
The state Department of Agriculture hadn’t received a copy of the photo, spokesman Mark Bruce said Friday.
“At the time of inspection, there was no visible evidence to keep the ride from passing inspection,” Bruce said in an email. “If there had been, further review would have been completed.”
Ken Martin, an amusement-ride safety consultant based in Virginia, said it’s possible the crack occurred after the ride was inspected that day, but more likely “this didn’t occur overnight.”
“I’m just surprised that so many people missed it, I really am,” Martin said. “We just don’t know when it occurred.”
A spokesman for New Jersey-based Amusements of America said the firm is aware of the photograph but that it doesn’t change anything.
“We don’t question what the picture shows, but it doesn’t change the investigators’ conclusion that it wasn’t operator error,” said David Margulies, with a Dallas public relations firm. “Nobody saw it until they blew up the picture, and you’d have to be standing in the right place to see it.
“Would they have seen it? That’s the question.”
Elliott said the patrol provided him the photo Thursday in response to an Ohio Public Records Act request after a fairuse assessment was conducted.
Both Elliott and Martin questioned why the patrol didn’t publicly release the one photo that was part of its investigation that might show a crack was missed by ride inspectors when it released dozens of other photos with its investigative report.
“It’s stunning to me that they delay, withhold, whatever word you want to put to it, probably the most revealing piece of evidence,” Elliott said. “That’s absurd. They’ve released all kinds of photographs.”
The patrol determined there was no criminal negligence in the ride’s deadly failure, a call that was made by Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien, patrol spokesman Lt. Robert Sellers said.
The final investigation shows that O’Brien asked the patrol to re-interview the inspectors and ride operators “to see if any of them may have seen what appears to be a crack in the gondola that became detached during the accident.:”
The patrol’s report also says that a man who had previously worked on the Fire Ball for Amusements of America contacted them and alleged that cracks had been painted over.
“Subject gave an example of a ‘drop collar’ that was damaged and cracked prior to an inspection,” the report said. “Subject stated there was not enough time to properly repair the area so a fresh coat of paint was applied to hide the cracks in order to get the inspection to pass. Subject stated the owners knew how the repairs were being made and they were okay with it as long as the ride gets a pass.”
But Margulies said there’s nothing in the patrol report to indicate workers painted over the crack.
“Look at the conclusions in the report,” Margulies said. “If the report doesn’t say that happened, then obviously the people who did the investigation don’t believe that happened.”
Investigators reported finding a can of red paint and a wet paintbrush under the ride, but they never concluded that the crack was what was painted that day.
The patrol’s report also said a man who was preparing to take his seat on the Fire Ball right before the ride in which it broke overheard a man exiting the ride “talking about how bad his seat was shaking” to a ride operator.
“(The man) stated the Fire Ball workers told the oncoming passengers the ride was safe, and they could either take their seats or be replaced by someone else.”
The man was on the ride when “he saw the row of seats fall from the ride, and two people ejected from the ride,” the report said.