A roller coaster at Hong Kong Disneyland has left over 100 riders stranded in mid-air recently after suddenly stopping twice over the course of four days.
At around 6pm on Saturday, the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars ride at Disneyland abruptly halted while carrying 72 passengers. A maintenance worker for the park told HK01 that service was suspended due to a “signaling error” but also “dangerous behavior” from riders.
A Disneyland spokesperson told HK01 that staff evacuated riders within about 10 minutes and the ride was reopened at around 7pm following a “comprehensive safety check”.
At around 2pm yesterday afternoon, however, the ride suddenly stopped yet again while 48 people were onboard. Again, passengers were evacuated in roughly 10 minutes.
A parkgoer surnamed Lee, who had been waiting in line for the roller coaster for half an hour at the time, told Apple Daily that park staff simply told them to stop queuing as the ride had to “undergo performance checks”. It wasn’t until he turned to leave that Lee saw “two carts of passengers trapped on the ride in the baking heat.”
A Disneyland representative told Apple Daily that park staff evacuated the Big Grizzly ride and, following protocol, reopened it after security checks showed there were “no issues”. No specific reason for the service suspension was given and none of the passengers affected in either incident were reported to have been injured.
Last month, the Dragon roller coaster at Ocean Park suddenly halted mid-ascent, leaving some 23 passengers hanging in mid-air until up to 41 minutes. A spokesperson for Ocean Park said the ride’s safety mechanism shut down operations after detecting “mechanical abnormalities” and the park would submit a full investigation report to the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.
