RideAccidents: roundup site for carny ride accidents

RideAccidents is a website that tracks gruesome carny-ride accidents -- the happiest manglings on earth! Fuel for your phobia of fun-fairs.

Air Glory ride cited for 25 code violations; report suggests operator, not deficiences, to blame for death

Owner: operator "had a tendency not to lock the carabiner after attaching the rider to the ride."

(Friday, July 27, 2007) - The Air Glory freefall ride from which a girl fell to her death in Wisconsin on July 14 has been cited for 25 code violations by investigators who inspected the ride after the accident. Officials from the Wisconsin Commerce Department do not believe that the deficiencies contributed to the girl's death because the ride was operating properly at the time she was killed. However, one official said that the ride might have been red-tagged if the violations had been discovered before the accident. The ride was due for an inspection three days after the accident.

Link (via Neatorama)

[#1 posted by Warren Camishen , January 2, 2008 11:56 PM]

i lost a finger on a ferris wheel (1975) - getting off the ride, which is apparently the most common time of injury for these things

[#2 posted by dculberson , January 3, 2008 8:01 AM]

I have a sick fascination with these things.

Despite reading a ton of them, I'm still more afraid of the carnival ride operators than the rides themselves. Although the smell of grease and fuel oil doesn't tend to give much confidence in the equipment.

[#3 posted by MrsBug , January 3, 2008 1:00 PM]

My husband and I rode (one of) his favorite rides this summer: The Tobaggan. Scary. Rickety, squeezed in like sardines despite both of us being thin. I had wondered why it had seemed to disappear from midways since we were kids (late 30's, both of us) and now I know. Today's "normal-sized" Americans wouldn't fit in it. My 6-ft, 150-lb husband barely fit!