No timeline to reopen Playland's The Beast after broken part halts ride
Credit to Author: Stephanie Ip| Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 16:45:38 +0000
Crews will take as much time as they need before reopening Playland’s The Beast after a broken part halted the ride on Monday.
The ride was brought to a slow stop on Monday around 3 p.m. after guests were sprinkled with a liquid coming from the structure said spokeswoman Laura Ballance
Riders are pictured on The Beast, a ride introduced to Playland in 2015.
“It wasn’t a big oil spill, it’s non-hazardous,” said Ballance, adding guests were given cleaning instructions and that staff followed safety protocol in halting the ride and helping guests to disembark.
The ride will now be assessed over the coming days and will remain out of service until crews can identify and repair the broken part, and engineers and safety experts have had a chance to inspect the machine thoroughly.
Ride are inspected daily by operators and annually by Technical Safety B.C. and third-party safety consultants.
“We’ll take the time we need to get it back,” said Ballance. “We’ll go through the process and recommission the ride so we won’t rush it. It won’t run a minute before it’s supposed to.”
Patrons who were aboard the spinning, pendulum-style ride at Playland say it began to shake and make a noise like metal grinding on metal. Operators safely brought the ride to a stop and helped people off, but McKenna Henderson says the whole event was nerve-wracking.
She says “every second felt like an hour” as she and a friend waited for their turn to get off the ride, and even after the pendulum had stopped, some sort of oil continued to spew and spattered onlookers.
Henderson says the oil seemed to come from the top of the steeple supporting the swinging arm.
“It was like a shower. It was spraying everywhere — clothing, hair, bags. It got me on my clothing and hair. It was really warm. It appeared green.”
The two-week-long Pacific National Exhibition, which includes the Playland amusement park, opens this weekend.
— with files from Canadian Press