The Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers was evacuated on Monday after a rider triggered an alarm.

The £18 million ride was closed for 30 minutes while engineers reset the computer system which monitors the safety sensor.

A spokesman for the Staffordshire theme park confirmed: ‘At 10.15am today, an assisted exit took place in the station when a guest, at the end of their ride, held their harness down during the routine harness release, triggering our sensors.

‘The ride then needed to be reset as required by our operating processes and is now re-open.’

Last September, Alton Towers operator Merlin Attractions was fined £5 million after admitting health and safety breaches over a 2015 crash on The Smiler.

Two teenagers – Vicky Balch, then 19, and Leah Washington, then 17 – each lost a leg in the collision and three others were seriously injured.

Stafford Crown Court heard the victims watched with ‘disbelief and horror’ before crashing into an empty carriage on the track.

Prosecutors compared the impact to a 90mph car crash.

The company was fined after the court heard an engineer ‘felt pressure’ to get The Smiler back in operation after it developed a fault shortly before the crash.

In September 2016 – just a year after the accident – 32 riders were left stuck in mid-air for 40 minutes on the ride as it came to a halt up a vertical track.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Tom Towers

If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]