Tire Sampson, pictured, fell dead on March 24 during world’s highest drop ride in Orlando
Florida investigators revealed Monday that the safety sensors of a ride at an Orlando amusement park had been modified before a Missouri teen fell.
14-year-old Tire Sampson from St. Louis visited the ICON park with a friend and his family on March 24, and the group decided to ride the Free Fall, which opened in December.
During the ride, 30 passengers ascend the world’s tallest freestanding drop tower, reaching a height of 430 feet.
They then tip forward and plunge 400 feet down at speeds of 120 km/h.
On Monday, a team of forensic engineers hired by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services concluded that Sampson was the first to slip out of the harness feet and slide over the seat horn that was between his legs.
The gap between his armor and the top of the seat horn was 6-7 inches, they found. Other seats had an average opening of 3.33 inches.
State-of-the-art sensors monitoring the three-month-old ride would normally have alerted operators to the fact that the gap was abnormally large.
Sampson, 14, was a rising star high school football player. Despite his young age, he was six feet tall and weighed about 340 pounds, his father said. He dropped dead on March 24.
A preliminary accident report revealed that Sampson’s seat was locked: on Monday, a more detailed report concluded that the gap between the seat horn and the harness was abnormally large
Sampson was in seat one, where the gap between the seat horn and the bottom of the harness was 6-7 inches. The rest of the seats (pictured right) only had an average opening of 3.33 inches
However, the sensors had been modified before Sampson’s ride to approve the closure of the seat, despite the large opening.
Sampson was six feet tall and 340 pounds, his father Yarnell said. The ride manual stated that the rider weight limit was 286 pounds. The engineers did not comment on whether Sampson should have been allowed to drive.
The researchers found that the ride “experienced no mechanical or electrical failure.”
The safety harness on his seat was “still in a downward and locked position when the ride stopped,” according to an earlier report.
Instead, they wrote, the settings were manually overridden.
There are marks on the chair horn on which Sampson slipped to his death
Researchers found that the seat sensors were modified to approve the abnormally large gap between the seat horn and the harness
The seat was manually adjusted and the sensor was adjusted to accept the adjustment
Heart-shaped balloons will be released into the sky on March 28 during a vigil for Sampson under the ride
The teenager was a promising football player at his school in St. Louis
“The cause of the accident in question was that Tire Sampson was not sitting properly in the seat, mainly due to an incorrect adjustment of the harness proximity sensor,” they stated.
“Incorrect sensor adjustment could have caused both safety lights to illuminate, causing the ride’s electronic safety mechanisms to fail and the ride to begin even though the ride was unsafe.”
Trevor Arnold, an attorney for Orlando Slingshot, which owns and operates the ride, said in a statement that the group “followed all protocols, procedures and safety precautions provided by the ride’s manufacturer.”
“Today’s report suggests a full review of the ride’s design, safety, operation, attachment mechanisms and history — which we welcome, of course,” Arnold said in a statement.
An ICON Park spokesperson said in a statement that the company is “deeply concerned” by the preliminary findings of the state’s investigation.
The post Boy, 14, Who Fell 430ft From Orlando Theme Park Ride Was In Seat With Sensors Modified first appeared on A NEWS GROUP.
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