A Brief History
On June 14, 1986, The Mindbender, the world’s largest indoor triple-loop roller coaster, derailed and killed three riders at Galaxyland inside West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Digging Deeper
The accident occurred just a few months after the ride’s opening on March 16, 1986. On a Saturday evening in June of that same year, the roller coaster’s yellow train (train No. 1) completed the ride’s second inverted loop before encountering one of three areas of uplift before the third and final loop. Unfortunately, missing bolts on the left inside wheel assembly of the last car of the four-car train caused the bogie assembly to disengage the track, causing the final car to fishtail wildly. To the horror of other park goers watching the disaster unfold from off of the ride, the lap bars disengaged as the train collided with support structures and the now unsecured passengers were thrown off of their seats, killing three and seriously injuring a fourth person.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, disturbing information came out about the German company Schwarzkopf that manufactured the ride. In addition to problems in the translation from German to English of operational and maintenance information, additional issues concerned quality control as a result of the manufacturer’s going bankrupt during delivery of the ride. Moreover, Mindbender crews in Canada had not been provided a special inspection order from the General Safety Services Division of Germany where the ride was manufactured.
Nevertheless, the ride survived its opening year debacle with various fixes having helped the ride to have subsequently been accident free. The ride, which continues to operate, has also, from 1998 to 2010, ranked among the top 50 steel roller coasters according to the magazine Amusement Today.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see the park’s official site.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Qyd (talk · contribs) of a rollercoaster in Galaxyland, West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You are free:
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