A Labour Department investigation into the death of a well-known Auckland amusement ride owner has been unable to determine what caused the ride to fail.
Bill Mahon's death at the Easter Show in Auckland in April has now been referred to the coroner's court.
The department's Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) service
looked into the circumstances that led to Mr Mahon's death at the Easter Show in Auckland, OSH Auckland service manager John Forrest said today in a statement.
Mr Mahon was carrying out daily maintenance checks on the Super-Loops rollercoaster ride when he fell about 3m to his death.
A witness had seen Mr Mahon kneeling on the ride's raised access platform and inspecting a part of the device, when the carriage, which he had earlier reversed partway up the loop, suddenly came toward him.
Although he tried to get out of the way, the runaway carriage struck him and pushed him off the platform.
Mr Forrest said the ride had a "lockout" mechanism, which stopped anything from physically moving, but was sited at ground level and was not commonly engaged by staff during this routine procedure.
Mr Forrest said despite OSH investigators calling in engineering and hydraulics experts, the exact reason why the carriage came down and hit Mr Mahon could not be satisfactorily explained.
"The ride was well maintained, and Mr Mahon was in the habit of safety testing it every day. There was no evidence of mechanical failure as the cause of the accident, and the most likely conclusion is some kind of hydraulic failure," Mr Forrest said.
Although OSH closed the ride down immediately after the fatal fall, engineers found that a similar failure during normal operation would not have resulted in harm to patrons, and the ride was declared safe for use a day later.
Mr Forrest said Mr Mahon was very experienced, very safety conscious and highly regarded in the industry.
"Even the most experienced operators can be put into dangerous situations if machinery fails, which is why the use of lockouts is so important."
OSH will provide a report to the coroner's court, and will make recommendations that a second lockout mechanism be developed for use on the ride's access platform to make it easier for staff to lockout the machine.
The Super-Loops ride consists of a vertical, circular track and a rollercoaster which does a loop around the inside.
- NZPA
