Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design Standards

Re:Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design St... by codezero on Monday March 26, 2018 @06:23PM (#16683187)

I was reading a story about how this was built by unqualified engineers and I was really confused how that happened, but a quick summary:

The owners of this park have a long history of building and operating water parks in general, with the specialty of "lazy river" type infinite pool rides.

This extreme ride is a very different piece of work and gets into the "roller coaster" design which is a whole different piece of engineering.

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Re:Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design St... by TylerE on Monday March 26, 2018 @06:52PM (#16683426)

That's not really true.

They had been building and operating rides with similar mechanics (e.g. uphill sections with boosters) for years.

They opened the original Master Blaster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e2p6Qw4yIE) in 1996.

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Re:Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design St... by codezero on Monday March 26, 2018 @06:55PM (#16683448)

Fair point, I guess the question then remains: were they qualified to build those either?

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Re:Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design St... by technofiend on Monday March 26, 2018 @07:41PM (#16683780)

I can only share my personal experience but I was lofted into the air and then slammed down so hard I was worried for my safety on one of their rides in Galveston. It's too bad they didn't swallow their pride and acknowledge the fact they were successful enough that their newer rides needed engineering oversight instead of layperson guesswork.

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Re:Water Slide That Decapitated Boy Violated Basic Design St... by jonhendry18 on Tuesday March 27, 2018 @02:04PM (#16691120)

Perhaps they only build parks in low-regulation states.

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