Disney Skyliner Accident

[wdwlver]

I totally get it. I’m not afraid of heights but Ia claustrophobic. If it’s moving and a short ride I’ll be fine. If I was stuck in a car with only 4 people I might be able to keep myself calm for an hour. If I’m in a packed full car I’d lose it in no time. But either way at the three hour mark I’d be a wreck.

This is me. Exactly. Some people have said guests in their gondola threw up. Can not fathom a worse scenario except if it happened at 3 pm in July. I don’t care about reflective glass, everyone who rode one when it was hot out and had stopped said it got really hot in there quickly. That’s a nightmare scenario.

 

[Belle & Ariel]

We were stuck about an hour on the sky ride at Busch Gardens Tampa several years ago. When the ride resumed, everyone was met by several execs in suits and one walked each party to the ride of their choice where they were taken to the front of the line. We were also given a bottle of water and a ticket to come back any day. I thought it was generous. I think people demand more because of Disney’s deep pockets. If this continues to trap people for hours, maybe more compensation is due, but not now. They’ve tested for more months than any other company would.

 

[MichelinMan]

Hmmm...you agree to some extent. There is an entire branch of probability called Reliability Theory that addresses failure rates of complex systems below is the failure graph that applies copied from Wiki. Really surprised that someone who has investigated accidents would agree to this to only an extent. What was your role in accident investigations if I may ask? Complex systems exhibit relatively high failure rates at start up and then again at end of design life-

View attachment 441848

Yes, know all about that - was my area of research when I worked in industry. Which is why when you design safety instrumented systems, you take reliability data about sensors etc. into consideration, using techniques such as SIL assessments. Didn't really want to get into the number crunching in my original post, as I was trying to use layman's terms, but the SIL assessment should show up whether failure of just one sensor is critical to the reliability of the system. If it is, then there should be an element of redundancy built into the system. I would have expected a FMEA analysis to have been conducted on such a system, which would have revealed such critical components. So to some extent failures should be expected - but they should not be crucial to the safe operation of a system.

As to my experience - I'm afraid I can't reveal who I work for. But let's just say I am recognised as probably the most experienced investigator in my field in the UK.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I know I am late on this but $100 GC and a 1 day ticket? I would literally laugh in their faces. I am NEVER one to ask for compensation for anything, but that is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Spaceguy55]

 

[mshanson3121]

I know I am late on this but $100 GC and a 1 day ticket? I would literally laugh in their faces. I am NEVER one to ask for compensation for anything, but that is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm with others - for some, honestly, if they weren't that stressed out by the experience, the compensation seems okay. For others, parents who had children who were crying and upset (saw several reports of that), if you were traumatized (claustrophobic etc), sick, or even stuck in a car with someone who had been sick etc... then yes, I think more is warranted. For many, this will have ruined their entire trip.

 

[SaintsManiac]

I'm with others - for some, honestly, if they weren't that stressed out by the experience, seems okay. For others, parents who had children who were crying and upset (saw several reports of that), if you were traumatized (claustrophobic etc), sick, or even stuck in a car with someone who had been sick etc... then yes, I think more is warranted. For many, this will have ruined their entire trip.

If you have an AP that ticket is just worthless. They would need to throw a $500 GC at me to keep me happy.

 

[gorkt]

At this point, I would like a statement about the status of the Skyliner and what their plans are for it. They need to do this like yesterday since social media is running away with this story.

 

[Disneylover99]

I'm with others - for some, honestly, if they weren't that stressed out by the experience, the compensation seems okay. For others, parents who had children who were crying and upset (saw several reports of that), if you were traumatized (claustrophobic etc), sick, or even stuck in a car with someone who had been sick etc... then yes, I think more is warranted. For many, this will have ruined their entire trip.

And I think what many don’t realize is that being stuck for this length of time has the potential for triggering phobias.

 

[mshanson3121]

And I think what many don’t realize is that being stuck for this length of time has the potential for triggering phobias.

Exactly. Especially for children, but adults, too.

 

[10CJ]

The whole situation just makes me sad. Definitely curious to hear more info on what happened. I do wonder if they delayed in evacuations since it was not 3pm in July.

We were debating riding just to ride in Nov. will be looking to see what happens between now and then. We have another trip next year where we plan to use this as transportation.

 

[angelinaxox]

I know there are questions about how long they will need to be shut down before they reopen for safety/investigative purposes, but I was wondering if there was also a need to stay closed for sanitation purposes if people were sick or going to the bathroom in them. Do they also need to make sure the cabins are safe sanitary wise before they restart or is that a nonissue? Not sure if anyone would be able to answer my question but it was something I was wondering about while reading these posts. I apologize if it sounds like a silly question.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Im a very rational personal. New things break and need time to be adjusted. That’s normal. What’s unacceptable is the apparent lack of planning for when an incident did occur. With three hours time to plan how were there not DOZENS of busses waiting for these guests feet away from where they got off? Further inconveniencing these guests is wholly unacceptable.

Im also curious what happens if you wait trapped for three hours midday in July heat?

 

[Disneylover99]

I know there are questions about how long they will need to be shut down before they reopen for safety/investigative purposes, but I was wondering if there was also a need to stay closed for sanitation purposes if people were sick or going to the bathroom in them. Do they also need to make sure the cabins are safe sanitary wise before they restart or is that a nonissue? Not sure if anyone would be able to answer my question but it was something I was wondering about while reading these posts. I apologize if it sounds like a silly question.

People were instructed to use the onboard emergency kits. At the very least, they’ll have to be replaced, so I’m assuming if any gondolas are soiled in any way they’ll be cleaned. I’d imagine, smell would be a good indication of a gondola needing to be cleaned.

 

[Bing Showei]

I know there are questions about how long they will need to be shut down before they reopen for safety/investigative purposes, but I was wondering if there was also a need to stay closed for sanitation purposes if people were sick or going to the bathroom in them. Do they also need to make sure the cabins are safe sanitary wise before they restart or is that a nonissue? Not sure if anyone would be able to answer my question but it was something I was wondering about while reading these posts. I apologize if it sounds like a silly question.

It's easy to clean up a biological mess. It's a lot harder to clean up a PR mess.

Last night, official statement from a Disney rep said there was no accident. Eventually, that official statement was revised to acknowledge a collision, but adding that "no guests were involved." If it comes to light that this statement needs to be a re-revised. It's going to seem they are being, at best, disingenuous.

If anything Disney should want to get ahead of this and be completely transparent in what they discover, and address how they will be revisiting their evacuation procedure. Some measure of mea culpa would go a long way here.

 

[iZon]

I read somewhere the people that were in one of the gondolas that got squished. So there were people involved it seems.

 

[pahoben]

Yes, know all about that - was my area of research when I worked in industry. Which is why when you design safety instrumented systems, you take reliability data about sensors etc. into consideration, using techniques such as SIL assessments. Didn't really want to get into the number crunching in my original post, as I was trying to use layman's terms, but the SIL assessment should show up whether failure of just one sensor is critical to the reliability of the system. If it is, then there should be an element of redundancy built into the system. I would have expected a FMEA analysis to have been conducted on such a system, which would have revealed such critical components. So to some extent failures should be expected - but they should not be crucial to the safe operation of a system.

As to my experience - I'm afraid I can't reveal who I work for. But let's just say I am recognised as probably the most experienced investigator in my field in the UK.

If you work for BP in the UK then you must have spent a lot of time in the US investigating their disasters here. Unbelievable number, refinery fires, massive pipeline leaks, blowouts, etc. Their main activity in the US has been disasters.

 

[angelinaxox]

People were instructed to use the onboard emergency kits. At the very least, they’ll have to be replaced, so I’m assuming if any gondolas are soiled in any way they’ll be cleaned. I’d imagine, smell would be a good indication of a gondola needing to be cleaned.

Thanks for the response!

It's easy to clean up a biological mess. It's a lot harder to clean up a PR mess.

Last night, official statement from a Disney rep said there was no accident. Eventually, that official statement was revised to acknowledge a collision, but adding that "no guests were involved." If it comes to light that this statement needs to be a re-revised. It's going to seem they are being, at best, disingenuous.

If anything Disney should want to get ahead of this and be completely transparent in what they discover, and address how they will be revisiting their evacuation procedure. Some measure of mea culpa would go a long way here.

Thanks for your response. As I mentioned, I know about that there will be lots of questions from the safety/investigative side and I was merely just asking in regards to the sanitation aspect. Glad any biolical mess will be an easy cleanup and not an extra component to the Skyliner issues.

 

[MichelinMan]

Whilst a lot of people are critical of the length of time taken to get everybody off, I actually think 3 hours was pretty good from my experience of dealing with major incidents. Looking at those damaged cars at the station, getting the cars hauled back in was never going to happen quickly. So I'm actually prepared to give Disney some slack there. Whilst not pleasant for those on board, I can't be too critical of the time to respond. Although sounds like communications could have been better (but again, that is no surprise to me - in the middle of an incident, communications are crucial, and lack of information is very common - in both directions).

Now, you may question the wisdom of having cars with no AC in them, for breakdowns in the sun in the middle of the day. But I believe that there is emergency cooling in each car that can operate for 4 hours (if what I read further up the thread is true). So if the cars get evacuated in 3 hours, that 4 hour emergency cooling should be adequate. So again, I'm not too critical of Disney here.

 

[kollerbear]

We were stuck about an hour on the sky ride at Busch Gardens Tampa several years ago. When the ride resumed, everyone was met by several execs in suits and one walked each party to the ride of their choice where they were taken to the front of the line. We were also given a bottle of water and a ticket to come back any day. I thought it was generous. I think people demand more because of Disney’s deep pockets. If this continues to trap people for hours, maybe more compensation is due, but not now. They’ve tested for more months than any other company would.

To be honest, that response impresses me more because it connotes accountability and ownership. For management to be present and to ask guests what they want to do next and to make that happen for them suggests listening to and responding to the guest's feelings. It honestly shows more acknowledgement of the difficult of what happened than just throwing a $100 gift card at them and calling it a "service disruption". Honestly it's the way they have handled the communication of this from the guest's POV that is stunning to me. Whenever something bad happens Disney has always been considered the best in the business. We have had bedbugs there and, while the experience was extremely unpleasant and not as easy as they thought it was, they were accountable, involved, and we got a heck of a lot more than $100 worth of value in compensation. This is fundamentally not the same thing as being stuck in a slow down. They had the ability to communicate more fully with guests and they chose to think only of their bottom line/liability instead of the guest experience. That is what makes this compensation, from my POV, unacceptable. They should have been working with the guests and they should have acknowledged the seriousness of what happened.