Report: Safety Sensors on Free Fall Ride Manually Adjusted Before Teen’s Death

The 14-year-old who died after falling from an amusement ride located in Florida was in a seat that had reportedly been manually adjusted, according to CBS News.

Quest Engineering and Failure Analysis reported the adjustment to Tyre Sampson’s seat kept sensors from stopping the ride, although the gap between his seat and harness was apparently too big, the outlet said Tuesday.

“This report confirmed our department’s findings that an operator of the Orlando drop tower made manual adjustments to the ride, resulting in it being unsafe,” Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried explained Monday.

Video footage shared in March showed Sampson in his seat before the incident occurred. The dark blue harness appeared to be higher up than those of others seated nearby:

The CBS article continued:

According to the report, two safety lights that are meant to illuminate once the seat’s harness is secured in a certain position must be activated for the ride to operate. The gap between Sampson’s seat and harness was found to be over twice as big as the average gap in 27 of the other seats on the ride. But due to the adjustment that had been made to the plate that houses the proximity sensors, the safety lights were still illuminated, allowing the ride to operate normally. The investigation concluded that had the pate been in it’s original position, the space between Sampson’s seat and closed harness would have been the same as the other 27 seats on the ride.

Testing found people of similar height and weight as the young man could slip through the restraints and “CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reported in March that the harness for Sampson’s seat ‘was still in a down and locked position when the ride stopped,'” the outlet said.

He weighed more than 300 pounds when the incident occurred at Orlando’s Icon Park last month. In addition, an operations and maintenance manual noted the maximum weight for passengers should be approximately 286 pounds, the CBS article added.

Photos showed the seats being measured and the sensor and clamping marks:

A family member of the teenager reportedly started a petition to shut down the ride for good, but after the recent report, officials said it would remain closed as the investigation moved forward.