Text-only version
On Friday the Kentucky Department of Agriculture finally released its report on the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom drop tower accident that maimed 13-year-old Kaitlyn Lassiter last summer. The KDA cited inadequate maintenance as the cause of the cable failure, and slow operator response for contributing to the severity of Kaitlyn's injuries.
The maintenance manager failed to follow the manufacturer's recommendations for inspection and maintenance of the cable, and a 16-year-old ride operator delayed hitting the e-stop for an estimated 10 seconds, choosing instead to call the park's emergency number. The emergency operator wasted precious seconds arguing with the ride op. Eventually the other ride operator, also a minor, reminded the first one to hit the e-stop. Unfortunately, Kaitlyn's car had already started its descent and couldn't be stopped in time.
As Kevin Russell noted in a recent blog, safety is achieved through layers of protection. The KDA report illuminates a serious problem with relying on a single layer of government oversight. State programs are often fundamentally underpowered when it comes to safety oversight of complex thrill rides and complex operations.
According to the accident report, KDA's ride safety unit doesn't have any engineers. They've got some good, dedicated machinery inspectors, but they didn't have the technical expertise to investigate this incident, or even interpret the findings of the technical experts hired to examine the evidence. Would it really spell the end of the world if we let Consumer Product Safety Commission's experts supplement the states in these cases?
One question that wasn't answered in the state's report is this: at what point did Six Flags have the correct maintenance manual? Sure, it's important to know when the state had the correct manual, but they're not the first line of defense. The park is. Did the park maintenance manager fail to follow Intamin's instructions because he didn't know what they were, or did he decide, on his own, to implement another maintenance strategy? If it's the former, why didn't the park have the correct manual? If the latter, why didn't the park follow the manual's instructions? Understanding the why is the key to developing safer policies and procedures, not just for this one ride at this one park in this one state, but across the board.
Here's the larger question, the elephant in the room: if Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom had the wrong manual or was following the wrong procedure for some other reason, how do we know that the right procedures are being followed on their other rides? Are the over-stretched KDA inspectors going to perform a full audit? Are they even capable of doing so? And what about the Six Flags parks in Texas or Missouri or the other states that don't have government inspection? Six Flags described its maintenance program on Superman as "excellent", even after public release of the metallurgy report and the deposition of the maintenance manager clearly showing otherwise. Some of that is simply bravado and spin, but not all. It is very difficult for anyone to have clear, critical insight into their own mistakes.
Exempting amusement parks from the federal layer of safety oversight places an unreasonable burden on state and local governments. Every state has to create its own ride safety program from scratch, based on local politics, local rules, and local finances. Almost half the states simply abdicate to industry "self-regulation". Among those states that do have government ride safety officials, few have enough business to justify setting up the kind of solid, well-staffed, engineering-based program needed to thoroughly audit operational practices and investigate complex failures. None of the state programs can address problems across state lines. No government agency has authority to talk with Six Flags as a nationwide chain of theme parks, or talk with Intamin, the ride manufacturer, about the safety of the other drop towers in operation across the country. Is that really a good thing? Really? Would you feel that way if it were your daughter whose legs were severed?
This accident also raises age-old questions about the advisability of underage ride crews. What is this experience going to do to the child who was apparently given sole authority for human safety on that ride? What about the other underage operator who ran away when faced with the chaos? At the age of 16, this was probably their first real job. It is unfathomable to me that responsible adults would leave kids to handle this kind of situation. Ride operators are told to hit the e-stop if they hear or see anything funny, but quite often ride ops are also pressured by their supervisors to think twice before pressing the e-stop because it slows down the ride's throughput and sparks patron complaints. The ride operator was given a number to call for emergency help, but the park's emergency contact tried to talk the operator out of her concern that something serious had gone wrong. It took a bystander to finally call police. I can't tell you how often I hear that adult patrons had to take command of an accident scene at an amusement park.
Ride operators are subject to intense pressure to speed riders through the process, shorten load/unload time, and keep the ride running. Those pressures are in direct conflict with their assigned safety role. I would submit that it's difficult to do both well at any age, and far more difficult at 16. 
Teens are more vulnerable to pressure from bosses and peers, less sure of their own authority. The size and complexity of the ride also makes a big difference. Reliance on all-child crews to operate major thrill rides is a public safety question that deserves serious public debate at the national level. It's worth noting that federal child labor laws prohibit employees under 18 from operating machinery with power-driven hoists, such as the Superman drop tower -- unless the machine happens to be an amusement park ride. Not only did Big Theme obtain a full exemption from federal safety oversight of their rides; the Department of Labor also carved out an exception to the child labor laws so that parks like Six Flags could save money by using 16-year-old high school students to operate their thrill rides. The federal government can be so helpful when it's motivated.
We've been over this before, ad nauseum some would say. The 1981 loophole was a political boon for the theme park industry, a proud symbol of the regulatory "relief" ushered in by President Reagan. There is blowback, though, to any coup. Over the last 27 years, an awful lot of children have suffered as a result of Marriott's clever lobbying. Kaitlyn is simply one of the latest, and an especially poignant case.
