Failure of roller coaster safety management at amusement parks

Abstract

Background. Amusement park guests and employees have been killed by walking underneath inverted roller coasters. Best safety management practices require investigation and mitigation of hazardous conditions that have resulted in fatal incidents. While some amusement parks have taken actions to prevent such incidents, their efforts have been inadequate. This presentation describes the human factors (HF) method used to analyze these fatal incidents and the results of those analyses. Methods. We used online databases to identify fatal incidents in amusement parks that resulted from persons entering the space below inverted coasters, and obtained detailed records from government agencies, news accounts and legal proceedings describing these incidents. We used the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to analyze these incidents. Results. We identified 41 different incidents world-wide. From descriptions of the behavior of people killed while underneath an inverted roller coaster, it was apparent that they had not understood the hazards of walking underneath the coaster. Results of the HFACS revealed multiple causal factors of the fatal incidents. Discussion. Adopting a systematic HF analytic approach to investigate fatal incidents is needed to lead park management and investigators away from focusing only on unsafe behavior of guests and employees, and instead lead them to evaluating systemic causal factors such as failures of safety policies and procedures, warning systems, and training. HFACS also can benefit HF and safety professionals not only in conducting incident investigations, but also in proactively improving design of amusement parks and other complex systems to support safe and effective use.

Keywords: Human Factors, Safety Management, Hazard Identification And Control, Incident/accident Analysis

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007916