A typical roller coaster ride lasts several minutes but for customers at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California the broken down Superman Ultimate Flight roller coaster meant hours of waiting for rescue. The stalled train stopped its ride 150 feet in the air where it said for two hours.
The coaster slowed and then stopped before the first tower at approximately 2:30pm.
Superman Ultimate Flight is a new roller coaster that only opened on June 30 in Vallejo, the coaster can travel at speeds up to 62 mph and holds two cars with six riders each.
Firefighters were dispatched to the rollercoaster at 3 p.m. at which time riders were delivered water with the help of a ladder bucket hooked up to a park crane.
Thankfully riders were stuck in an upright position during the entire ordeal.
At one point all of the riders worked in unison to shake the coast free, it is unclear if the riders made that decision on their own or if firefighters asked them to shake the coaster.
A park mechanic eventually managed to fix the ride which traveled backwards until riders could be lowered to the ground. The Superman Ultimate Flight roller coast has been closed down until mechanics can determine what has went wrong.
None of the stranded riders were injured during the ordeal and none of the stranded riders required medical attention after exiting the ride.
While the reason for the stop has not been revealed engineers say roller coasters stop when problems are detected ahead of further issues to ensure the safety of riders.
Thank GOD no one was hurt and Thank GOD this didn't happen when we were on it on July 22nd!!!!!
Someone should have checked this out…the picture at the top of the story is actually Superman Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Great America near Chicago, which is a COMPLETELY different type of roller coaster than the one of the same name that malfunctioned in California.
I love it when they get it wrong.
I hate it.
Roller coasters break down. It happens. This is a new ride, so there are bugs and glitches in the system. What it looks like to me, is the LIMs did not propel the train fast enough to clear the barrel roll, and the train stalled.
Okay first of all. THEY WERE SAFE TO START WITH! Second of all.. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT PICTURE! Seriously now? Also thank you for over exaggerating everything about this story. Rides get stuck ALLL the time. The riders are always safe! It is not like they were stuck upside down. No they were on a break where the rides safety system took into place doing what its supposed to be doing (and then a little more).