Draft:Thunder River Rapids Ride Accident (2016)

• Comment: While potentially notable based on the sources alone, it seems like this is mostly generated by AI. The "Systemic and Secondary Causes" section is also completely unsourced. Rambley (talk) 23:23, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

---

The Dreamworld Thunder River Rapids Ride tragedy occurred on 25 October 2016 at Dreamworld amusement park in Coomera, Queensland, Australia. A number of factors, including multiple mechanical failures, lack of training, loose safety procedures, design flaws and immediate factors culminated in the Thunder River Rapids Ride accident, that resulted in the deaths of four visitors aboard of a raft. It remains one of Australia's worst amusement park accidents..

Figure 1 - Sketch of the Final Resting Position of Raft 5 (right) & 6 (left)

Background

Dreamworld, owned by Ardent Leisure, is still operating and it's currently one of the largest theme parks in Australia. The Thunder River Rapids Ride originally opened in 1986 and was a popular family attraction simulating a white-water rafting experience using circular rafts.

Despite its popularity, the ride had a history of mechanical issues and prior safety incidents, including reports of rafts becoming stranded and documented maintenance concerns.

Brief description of the incident

On 25 October 2016, at approximately 2:05 pm, Raft 6 became stranded on the steel support rails near the ride's unloading platform due to a water pump failure. Moments later, Raft 5, carrying:

• Kate Goodchild (32)
• Luke Dorsett (35)
• Cindy Low (42)
• Roozbeh Araghi (38)

and two children, collided with the stationary raft as it was unloaded by the conveyor belt.

The collision caused Raft 5 to lift and overturn, with the four adults being thrown into the ride's conveyor mechanism. Both children survived the accident.

Ride operators and guests responded immediately, but all four victims sustained injuries, as noted by first responders, "incompatible with living".

Timeline of notable events of 25 October 2016

The timeline here presented is largely reconstructed from the appropriate section of the Coroners Court's Report.

Morning Operations

• 8:00 AM: E&T Pre-Service Inspection of the ride was carried out by Mr. Robertson and Mr. Kamlesh Prasad. No issues were found.
• 9:25 AM: Courtney Williams began her training as a No. 2 Operator (under Ms. Crisp) for the ride.
• 10:05 AM: Ride opened to the public, with Mr. Tim Williams at the Main Control Panel and Ms. Williams performing unload operations under Ms. Crisp’s guidance.
• 11:15 AM: Ms. Williams completed her training as a No. 2 Operator.

First Pump Breakdown

• 11:30 AM: Operator change, Chloe Brix relieved Ms. Williams at the Main Control Panel while Tim Williams stayed at the unload station.
• 11:50 AM First South pump failure (Code 6). Electrician Mr. Frank De Villiers found that the South Pump's drive had tripped with an "Alarm 14 Earth Fault." He tried resetting it but needed to power down and restart the drive, which cleared the fault. When he asked Mr. Robertson to reset the pump at the Main Control Panel, it worked successfully.
• 12:21 PM: Ride reopened to the public with Ms. Brix and Mr. Tim Williams working the ride.

Second Pump Breakdown

• 1:09 PM: Second South pump failure (Code 6). Raft 6 became stranded, and water level dropped significantly. The ride was stopped and the pump restarted, proceeding with opening the ride to the public again. Relief supervisor Ms. Cotter checked that the ride was operating correctly and then handed control back to Ms. Brix. She expressed concern about the ongoing pump problem, noting, "What are we doing about this pump problem? This is ridiculous." Mr. Robertson explained that the procedure required three alarms before shutting down the ride; since the issue resolved itself, the ride could continue running. The second fault of the south pump was not escalated to an E&T Department Supervisor.
• 1:25 PM: The ride is opened again to the public.

Detailed Timeline (second by second) from this point forward

• 2:01 pm: Raft 5 loaded and released
• 2:03:50 pm: South water pump stopped for the third time, causing the major accident discussed in this article.
• 2:03:53 pm: Raft 6 descends the conveyor belt
• 2:04:10 pm: Raft 6 becomes stranded on the support rails due to low water
• 2:04:22 pm: Raft 5 is picked up by the conveyor
• 2:04:50 pm: Raft 5 begins to descend the conveyor
• 2:05:03 pm: Raft 5 first contact with Raft 6 and pushes it into the trasversial element of the bottom railing
• 2:05:06 pm: Rafts pivot upwards as conveyor keeps turning
• 2:05:07 pm: Raft 5 flips veritally and gets stuck between the conveyor and the first section of the unloading railing
• 2:05:11 pm: Ms. Goodchild falls from the bottom left hand side of Raft 5
• 2:05:13 pm: Mr. Dorsett falls from the top of Raft 5
• 2:04:22 pm: The conveyor comes to a stop
• 2:05:27 pm: Ebony Turner is observed to climb out of Raft 5 onto a concrete platform
• 2:05:35 pm: Kieran Low is observed to climb out of Raft 5 onto an employee walkway

Immediate Causes

• Water pump failure: the southern water pump, which failed already twice in a few hours that same day, failed a third time leaving the ride dry, this caused Raft 5 to be stranded on the rails and Raft 6 to be pushed into Raft 5 and flip;
• The preceding raft, when pushed by the one carrying the victims, got stuck in a cross beam of a supporting structure originally not present in the ride, but inserted after the removal of the original circular loading/unloading mechanism in order to make the unloading of the passengers more smooth (reducing the oscillation of the raft during unloading); this new design wasn't thoroulghly tested for safety, even though in 2001 a similar accident happened involving the cross beams.
• Converyor belt modifications and issues: the conveyor could be disabled only from the e-stop present in unloading, but not from the main panel. There was no automatic shutdown of the conveyor due to pump failure / water levels. The trasversal elements of the conveyors (the wooden planks) where removed in the measure of 2:3 (two out of three) due to a past modification, to render the conveyor lighter. This caused large gaps to be present between in each plank, larger than 70cm, which didn't prevent a person from getting caught in it. This was another change from the original design that, while fixing a current issue (reduce loading increased efficency) lacked safety foresight or proper testing, or, at the very least, such testing was not documented.
• Total shutdown missing: there was no way from the main panel to completely shut down every element of the ride. This prevented Operator 1 from stopping the conveyor in time.

Systemic and Secondary Causes

• Lack of scrupolous training: the new trainee was deemed "trained" in less than two hours of supervised training by a supervisor, then left in charge of her role as Operator 2 from that point forward.
• Loose safety communications and procedures: after the pump stopped twice that morning, only the mechanics specialized technician was contacted to fix the ride the first time, but no "upper" communication was deemed necessary because a failure was supposed to happen "3 times" before being escaleted to the safety personell / management, if it did not endanger directly the safety of the customers.
• Lack of a direct communication apparatus between ride operators: while Operator 2 was able to see the imminent danger of the situation, they were not able to rely the warning to Operator 1 as he was far and had its back turned, facing the loading section.
• Lack of alarms: no sound or visual alarms were installed to advise operators of possible malfunctions while far from the main panel, only a flashing light on the main control panel could communicate an excessive load of the pumps. Op1 noticed a malfunction of the ride because, while loading passengers, he noticed the support beams emerging from the water.
• Lack of redundancy: the ride needed both water pumps to be on at all times, one or two extra pumps and setting all of them to half power could have prevented a single point of failure situation. The water pumps were reportedly never considered a "critcal" piece of equipment for the ride and that "Over the years, the pump outages were commonplace" Chris Dreaves, who joined the theme park in 2012, told an inquest.

Coroner's Inquest

A comprehensive inquest took place between 2018 and 2020 in the Coroners Court of Queensland, overseen by Coroner James McDougall.

The key findings included:

• The deaths were caused by crush injuries, not drowning.
• The ride featured a "dangerous and unsafe" design with:
  • No single emergency shutdown button.
  • Lack of water level monitoring systems / automatic E-Stop driven by water levels.
  • Inadequate emergency stop controls.
• Staff received insufficient training for emergency situations: that same morning Operator 2 was trained for the new ride in just 90 minutes.
• Dreamworld's safety culture was described as "rudimentary and deficient" and realyng on word of mouth and hands on experience on rides, rather than a structured training and test-scenarios, especially for this ride.

The coroner concluded that the incident was "foreseeable and preventable".

Legal consequences

• In July 2020, Ardent Leisure Limited was charged with three breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld). In September 2020, the company pleaded guilty and was fined AUD $3.6 million, then the largest workplace fine in Queensland history.
• No individuals were criminally charged.
• Ardent Leisure settled with its shareholders over a class action regarding the incident for $26 million.

Aftermath

Following the incident:

• Dreamworld closed for several weeks, reopening in December 2016 after internal safety reviews.
• Park attendance dropped sharply.
• The Queensland Government introduced new amusement ride regulations, including:
  • Mandatory annual independent engineering inspections.
  • A new Safety Case Licensing System for major amusement parks.
  • Improved operator training standards.

A broader Best Practice Review of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland was also conducted.

Dismantling of the ride

The Thunder River Rapids Ride was permanently closed on the day of the incident. In 2018, Dreamworld announced it would be fully dismantled. The site was cleared by 2020, and as of 2025, no new attraction has been built on the location.

Impact on Dreamworld

The tragedy had lasting effects on Dreamworld's reputation and operations:

• Park management was restructured.
• Multimillion-dollar safety improvements were introduced.
• Attendance figures remained below pre-incident levels for several years.

Dreamworld has since worked to regain public trust, including through new attractions and safety campaigns as this tragedy sparked a lot of significant changes in safety procedures and designes which undoubtebly prevented similar accidents from happening again, at least in Australia

See also

• Dreamworld (Australia)