Disney Skyliner Accident

[Disney Bobby]

I'll be there in 20 days and I'm still looking forward to riding the Skyliner system. I would venture to say the system will be even safer after an incident like this. I certainly don't begrudge anybody about being stranded on the line and the stress and discomfort that causes, but fortunately there were not any reported injuries. No doubt it is only a matter of time before a lawsuit is filed. While there is a certain level of responsibility, sometimes things happen without malice or negligence.

I agree, except for possible heat-related injuries. It probably wouldn't be hard for some lawyer to convinced a jury that it is negligent to run a gondola system in Florida heat with no way to cool it outside of the breeze created by it's movement.

 

[jimim]

I can't imagine any company coming forth with a message involving the words "crash" or "injury" while other people were still trapped in that situation. That's asking for panic, in my mind. And from a legal standpoint for sure they'd not say those things. They probably would shy away from "stress" and from saying they could "verify" anything.




I haven't heard of any actual injuries yet. I've heard of panic attacks and heat related medical issues mentioned, but I would not classify either of those as technically an "injury". Have there been other things mentioned? I don't know how the word is used from a legal stand point, but I think of injuries as broken bones, head injuries, sprains, strains, cuts, abrasions, etc., etc.

heat medical issues that aren’t injury? Athletes have died cause of heat. Ya on fields cause of working out and training but you stick a human up in a cook box in the sky for a bunch of hours something related to heat might happen and I would call that an injury.

I am using observation of other systems. Even someone who knows these systems extremely well liftblog.com thought they took longer than expected to open this. Like I said these things go up over a summer season to be ready for the following winter at major ski resorts.

lifting people up a mountain in a straight run is a little bit easier I would think then what Disney has going on with turns and multiple lines coming and out of an area.
I have no idea what length of time is considered proper or how and when it should have been open or if it was tested properly.
But I would think the testing would be way way way longer or more intense than a ski resort.

 

[hunterjumperluv]

Per the sentinel article, RCFD evacuated six (yes, 6) cabins during the 3.5 hours.

The plan must be to always get the line running because I’d say that evacuation of the entire line is impossible.

Even if RCFD is currently undermanned, you’d need to scale 50x to make it practical to eval the whole line.

So, I’ve found this whole thread/unfolding events to be very interesting, but in the interest of “armchair quarterback” etc, has anyone considered that really, RCFD and Disney did have a plan? Don’t get me wrong, 3.5 hours is significantly longer than what I would want to be spending in a gondola, but perhaps, if they only evacuated 6 cars, they were only evacuating cars that pressed the emergency button, knowing that the line was going to get back into service to be able to run the system to be able to empty it in a way that would not put an unnecessary strain on the RCFD that may be needed elsewhere at the time?

All that being said, I don’t know the inner workings of this system, and I don’t know their emergency plans, and I think that we will know more and more as investigations are performed.

I do think their PR has been poorly handled throughout.

 

[nb75685]

I would imagine these tickets are flexible so you can come back on your own time

So would I, but that’s still requiring me to hand them more money to take advantage of my free ticket if I am not someone who can pop over for a day trip.

 

[Jax1023]

So, I’ve found this whole thread/unfolding events to be very interesting, but in the interest of “armchair quarterback” etc, has anyone considered that really, RCFD and Disney did have a plan? Don’t get me wrong, 3.5 hours is significantly longer than what I would want to be spending in a gondola, but perhaps, if they only evacuated 6 cars, they were only evacuating cars that pressed the emergency button, knowing that the line was going to get back into service to be able to run the system to be able to empty it in a way that would not put an unnecessary strain on the RCFD that may be needed elsewhere at the time?

All that being said, I don’t know the inner workings of this system, and I don’t know their emergency plans, and I think that we will know more and more as investigations are performed.

I do think their PR has been poorly handled throughout.

I do think this is a possibility- they held off on evacuating unless there was in issue in that cabin, with the knowledge that they would be able to restart the line to empty the cabins which is likely overall safer. I’d imagine evacuating each car from below is likely a last resort.

 

[rteetz]

Yes, inadequate cooling. How many of these systems worldwide are utilized in subtropical climates catering to an audience that skews very heavily towards young children, toddlers, and infants who won’t be able to handle the heat, and use an under-staffed fire department that can’t evacuate the system in a timely fashion?

I doubt the AC would survive 3 hours even if they did have it. It would have to be charged while passing through the stations much like the lights and sound is powered now. That’s why these AC systems aren’t reliable.

 

[rteetz]

Very very few systems like this are in climates like Florida.

That still doesn’t make them reliable. You need to power the AC somehow and that takes more power than lights and sound and also adds weight to each gondola.

 

[ScubaCat]

Not at riviera station

Right, and that's just weird. Somebody was trying to stay within a budget on that one, methinks.

 

[rteetz]

lifting people up a mountain in a straight run is a little bit easier I would think then what Disney has going on with turns and multiple lines coming and out of an area.
I have no idea what length of time is considered proper or how and when it should have been open or if it was tested properly.
But I would think the testing would be way way way longer or more intense than a ski resort.

The turns are nothing new. And by accounts there were tested longer than your typical ski resort.

 

[SarahD112]

Has anyone heard a peep from someone who was evacuated via fire truck ladder? I’ve seen posts and articles from those who were trapped and exited at a station, whether immediately or eventually, but nothing from those evacuated by fire department.

 

[rteetz]

Has anyone heard a peep from someone who was evacuated via fire truck ladder? I’ve seen posts and articles from those who were trapped and exited at a station, whether immediately or eventually, but nothing from those evacuated by fire department.

No I haven’t. It seems they may not have rescued that many via truck.

Speaking of that they may have decided to wait and just move the impacted offline and bring the rest through in the stations instead of evacuating which could have prolonged the process.

 

[snappy]

Has anyone heard a peep from someone who was evacuated via fire truck ladder? I’ve seen posts and articles from those who were trapped and exited at a station, whether immediately or eventually, but nothing from those evacuated by fire department.

And yet It has been reported that 6 gondolas were evacuated. And it sure looked like they were from the videos.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I'll be there in 20 days and I'm still looking forward to riding the Skyliner system. I would venture to say the system will be even safer after an incident like this. I certainly don't begrudge anybody about being stranded on the line and the stress and discomfort that causes, but fortunately there were not any reported injuries. No doubt it is only a matter of time before a lawsuit is filed. While there is a certain level of responsibility, sometimes things happen without malice or negligence.

I will be there in 20 days as well and I would be shocked if the system was up and running again in time for our trip. This was a major incident.

 

[mshanson3121]

Per the sentinel article, RCFD evacuated six (yes, 6) cabins during the 3.5 hours.

The plan must be to always get the line running because I’d say that evacuation of the entire line is impossible.

Even if RCFD is currently undermanned, you’d need to scale 50x to make it practical to evac the whole line. And people are arguing (and I don’t disagree) that 3 hours is too long.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this.

That's PATHETIC.

A couple years ago our local ski hill's chair lift malfunctioned. The ski hill is in the middle of nowhere. They had to call in multiple fire departments - many of which were 30-45 minutes away. From start to finish, in the middle of nowhere, having to get there on snow packed/slippery roads, they had all 116 chairs evacuated in 2 hours.

 

[snappy]

No I haven’t. It seems they may not have rescued that many via truck.

Speaking of that they may have decided to wait and just move the impacted offline and bring the rest through in the stations instead of evacuating which could have prolonged the process.

So they triaged the guests? Wonder how that was done?

 

[rteetz]

So they triaged the guests? Wonder how that was done?

There is a call button inside the cabins. They could’ve figured that out via the call button.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

So, I’ve found this whole thread/unfolding events to be very interesting, but in the interest of “armchair quarterback” etc, has anyone considered that really, RCFD and Disney did have a plan? Don’t get me wrong, 3.5 hours is significantly longer than what I would want to be spending in a gondola, but perhaps, if they only evacuated 6 cars, they were only evacuating cars that pressed the emergency button, knowing that the line was going to get back into service to be able to run the system to be able to empty it in a way that would not put an unnecessary strain on the RCFD that may be needed elsewhere at the time?

All that being said, I don’t know the inner workings of this system, and I don’t know their emergency plans, and I think that we will know more and more as investigations are performed.

I do think their PR has been poorly handled throughout.

Given that it was an RCFD member who was quoted in one of the articles I posted indicating that they were understaffed and this could have been a tragedy if it happened at noon, no, I don't think they have an adequate plan.

 

[insureman]

I was wondering the same thing. Most of these types of systems are at ski resorts where you would obviously not need air conditioning.

There have been claims that the Skyliner cars have "three hour emergency AC", but if they do it didn't kick in last night and it should have. I don't see anything on those cars that looks like a compressor so I don't think the claim of them having 'emergency AC' is true. Does anyone know for sure?

Doppelmayr/Garaventa has installed this in Vietnam. It doesn't get more tropical than that place. Here's the company video.

.

 

[snappy]

There is a call button inside the cabins. They could’ve figured that out via the call button.

You may be right. Have there been reports of much contact with guests in the impacted gondolad, other than use the emergency supplies?

 

[rteetz]

It seems this is what really needs to be looked out.

Those numbers are unacceptable.

What if the plan was evacuate those in need and then get the system moving rather than a full evacuation?