Wednesday 27 April 2011

Accident at Disneyland Paris - 25th April 2011

There was an accident at Disneyland Paris on Monday 25th April 2011 with one man seriously injured and five others with minor injuries.

The accident took place on the Mine Train attraction. A piece of artificial resin rock fell off onto the train track, causing a train to derail and rise up and land on a carriage carrying 25 people. The injured man was airlifted to hospital and lets hope he recovers.

The attraction has been closed for the time being.

The question is,
  • is this something that could have been avoided ? Should they not be inspecting the various parts of a ride to check that there is nothing that is working loose and needs repaired or replaced, especially those parts near moving things like trains.
  • Or is this just an unfortunate accident that couldnt have been foreseen ?
I tend to think that this should have maybe been foreseen.
I have a friend who reports a terrifying ride with her young children on a ride at Disneyland Paris where she felt she was having to hold her 5 year old onto the ride. She said it wasnt even a ride that looked potentially terrifying and looked suitable for young children. I shall ask her what it was called and report back.  (I have since checked and she said it was a Nemo themed ride - no wonder she thought it would be OK for young children !)

All I can say is thank goodness I am usually too scared to go on most rides such as rollercoasters - mind you I can imagine that that mine train looks like the type of thing I might possibly have been persuaded to go on.

Update (6th June 2011) - there was recently an accident where a young girl fell out of a ride at Parc Walibi in the Rhone Alpes and it turns out that a teenager was injured when he fell out of this ride in 2003 - http://www.francesoir.fr/actualite/faits-divers/walibi-un-ado-deja-blesse-dans-meme-attraction-107847.html. The accident with the young girl is attributed to the fact that the safety barrier wasnt holding her in due to size different between her and her aunt who had taken her on the ride. Lets hope she is OK.


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1 comment:

  1. I let hubbie and elder son go on Space Mountain with our friend Marie Claude and took Matthew on some innocuous looking little planes travelling round a central post. I was terrified and felt I was going to fall out. He was activating the lever to make them go up and down and I was shouting at him to stop. Never again! I don't remember the mine train but we did go on some sort of pirate ship which was fairly gentle. I don't trust these rides at all.

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