The accident occurred late Saturday evening. Shortly after 10 p.m., two trains collided with each other in the “Höllenblitz” at the Oktoberfest – according to operator Wilhelm Ottens, the largest transportable indoor roller coaster in the world. A train that was approaching had rolled back slightly and collided with a train that was still standing. Of a total of 60 passengers, eight were slightly injured and three were taken to hospital as a precaution. The ride then stopped operating for the time being.
Then on Monday the good news: all the necessary repairs had been completed and approved by the TÜV, said Ottens. The police also gave the green light. “The investigation has been completed. We can operate the ride again,” said a police spokesman. However, it’s not quite that easy.
As Ottens announced in an interview with the SZ, the manufacturer must first check the axles of the trains together with the TÜV; they are in the process of setting a date for this. “If things go well, the ‘Höllenblitz’ can run again on Tuesday,” said Ottens.
Ottens does not want to say how high the losses are due to the at least two days of standstill. But: “It really affects us.” He has not taken out business interruption insurance. “It’s usually not worth it,” says Ottens. The probability of something happening is so low that financing the insurance would mean a loss. A technical defect is suspected as the cause of the accident. How this came about is still unclear.
Incidents of this kind are rare at the Oktoberfest, which is why it was noticeable that this time there were problems in several places at the start. A video on social media shows how passengers in a car on the Olympic Looping Railway had to climb down steep stairs on Saturday evening because the train had stopped halfway up. Here too, a component is said to have been defective, but no one was injured.
Ultimately, the legal responsibility for the safe operation of rides always lies with the operator, not the manufacturer, explains Joachim Bühler, Managing Director of the TÜV Association. Once a year, rides, including those in amusement parks, must pass a basic inspection by the TÜV. At folk festivals, a so-called usage test also takes place after construction and dismantling, during which, for example, the braking systems are also checked. “We usually do this test too,” says Bühler.
Nevertheless, the operator and the staff are obliged to carry out a short safety check before each journey begins. If a part needs to be replaced during the fixed operation, a further inspection by the TÜV is necessary after the repair. In such cases, there is an emergency hotline that showmen can contact.
Bühler cannot answer how the “Höllenblitz” accident happened. Ultimately, the police have to determine whether there was a technical defect or, as was the case in an incident at Legoland last year, whether human error could have been the reason for the accident. In such a case, even a deliberate cause of the accident by a third party must first be ruled out by the police. “At the time of the TÜV inspection, everything was in working order, otherwise the ride would not have been approved for operation,” says Bühler.
The TÜV has been responsible for inspecting the rides at the Oktoberfest since 1929. As usual, the first employees to check the tents were at Theresienwiese three months before the tapping. Just checking all the rides took two weeks, said Bühler. Depending on the complexity of the system, the acceptance of a ride can take anywhere from a few hours to several days.
As long as there is no operational approval, the rides must stop operating. Showman Michael Menzel’s Zugspitzbahn stood idle for a long time in 2022 because a spare part was ordered but then lost. Because the parking fee for 2022 is still outstanding after the loss-making deal, Menzel did not receive Theresienwiesen admission this year – the end for the Zugspitzbahn after 80 years.
Showman Karl Häsler had a similar experience in 2014. His high-tech illusion show Encounter, which was about experiments with aliens, only started five days late. First, components from the USA were delivered late, then the lighting system failed – and the speakers were also installed incorrectly.
Accidents in which people are injured are rare at Oktoberfest. At the “Turmschleifenbahn”, which stood at the 110th Oktoberfest in 1921, the floor suddenly collapsed at a height of 20 meters due to the large influx of visitors. 30 people were injured, eight of them seriously. In 1996, two cars collided on the Euro-Star roller coaster, resulting in 30 injuries.
An incident on the Olympic looping track in 1989 ended particularly tragically. A locksmith forgot to close the safety bar during one of the last test runs before the premiere of the then new track and was thrown out of the car. The father of three daughters did not survive the accident.