Crazy how simply this could've been prevented

Wow you caught it as it valleyed before the occupied car was dispatched... this deserves 100x more views

Valleyed coasters are cursed footage. We are so used to seeing trains whip through these section, its super uneasy seeing a heavy train start swinging back and forth

this actually made me so anxious. we all know what happened after this clip was taken and it was absolutely tragic. I am aware that no one died, but poor communication cause this tragic accident to happen. I really wish that someone could've at least tried to tell the staff in the shop about the valleyed car. i dont know if they would've been able to do anything about it but it may have helped. (anyone who's worked on a coaster feel free to tell me)

This is actually kind of haunting

Just in case anyone is interested, the accident happened because it was a busy day at the park so the ride operators added an extra train but didn't tell the mechanics. The ride was also operating in winds that were higher than the manafacturer deemed safe. So the empty test car valleyed and the second train filled with people started the first lift hill but stopped at the top because it correctly detected the test car. However the mechanics manually overided the safety system because the ride operators hadn't told them about the extra train. The full train continued ... and crashed. The crash was therefore both the ride operators fault for not telling the mechanics about the extra train, and the mechanics fault for not visually verifying the whereabouts of ALL trains. You also have to remember the fact that because of the high winds on that day, The Smiler shouldn't have been operating AT ALL in the first place.

You won’t belive how much anxiety this video gave me

The fact that loads of people are laughing coz it valleyed is kinda dark coz we all know what happened next

I see a lot of comments confused on what actually happened in the accident.....this video is showing the empty car that was sent out to test the ride, but it failed to complete the circle, as shown here. The full car was sent out and stopped on top of a hill. It stopped because the system detected that another car was on the track. The engineers who were checking out the ride overrode the system to let the full car go because they thought all the cars were accounted for and it was an error. They had plenty of time to stop the ride, they didn’t need to use ESTOP. The car the riders were in was already stopped at the top of an incline. If the operators had listened to the warning, they would have realized the empty car was still on the tracks and shut down the ride. But instead they overrode the system and allowed the ride to continue. Posting this because I see a lot of people in the comments asking why they didn’t use ESTOP or saying they didn’t have enough time to fix this.

It's so funny how five more mins of film could have made millions

I was there on that day with my parents, just as my mum and dad were gonna get on again it was closed and said keep out and no one could come in and there were ambulances all over the place I'm so lucky my dad and mum did not die on that day. Thank you God for saving their lives. Amen. 🥰

such a traumatic event. may we hope those people in that cart are doing well today. 💞

This actually gives me the chills thinking right then everyone was having a good day and the empty train was there and maybe people even laughed that an empty train had rolled back but no one there that day knew what was going to happen in minutes

As you hear a woman laughing at it

it's all fun and laughter until the next train comes

Oh fucking hell, i’m glad the next part isn’t on this video. Imagine standing there just looking at the people going to crash

i am scared abt this happening but it will never ever stop me from going on the smiler

This sends chills right up my spine.

Should of kept filming

The ride is now safer than ever and it is my favourite at Alton so don’t let this put you off!

Ever since I heard about the smiler crash, I didn’t want to go on the smiler but now I know that’s it’s perfectly safe and this accident or something similar will never happen again you are more likely to get into 10 car crashes on the way to the park than you getting seriously injured or die on a ride. I’ve been on the smiler 5 times now. It’s my favourite ride I even have it on my Roblox avatar.

thank god there wasn’t anyone in that cart otherwise that would have cause 2x the injuries but god bless those who were involved of the other cart

Before you hate on this ride keep in mind No one has ever died on a ride at Alton Towers Disney have more reported cases of death and injuries so if you hate on the smiler you must also hate on disney

It’s kind of creepy how they are laughing then at the valley and thinking nothing of it, but had no idea what was coming.

Little did you know how serious and affecting this would be on the parks reputation and people's lives.

It is called the smiler

It’s honestly stupid how the staff thought that a ‘ghost train’ triggered the safety mechanism and decided to override it, not even clearing the tracks first. That’s a 5 million dollar mistake, also cost 2 young girls their legs. They also should of put water dummies in the empty cart to build momentum, but they didn’t, causing volleyed coasters. Also, they were not meant to run the ride when wind speeds bypassed 34mph. There were gusts of up to 46mph. Poor communication between the two teams (the team who sent out the test cart never told the other team) and those seemingly harmless mistakes were downright stupid. There was only meant to be 4 carts, not 5. The worst thing is when the crash happened, all they could hear was maniacal laughter.

It’s unsettling the fact that the accident had nothing to do with the ride but the idiots working when it happened..

Wow that laugh made me rage i swear they better have regretted that

Must have been scary to see this happen and sad😢

Anyway this is uhm scary. I've never personally been on the smiler. But if I did everything correctly. The maintenance sent out a 5th cart due to the amount of people in the park. Yet the ride shouldn't have been running because it only runs at a certain wins speed and if it's over that it should not operate. The fifth train was not filled with water dummies. So it didnt make the loop and valley. The next train went off about 10 minutes later. But maintenance had not been informed about this "5th train" so the cart stopped at the peak of the lift hill. Maintenance then override the safety mechanism stopping trains going into the same block unaware of a 5th train valleyed. The train went off and smashed into the back of the valleyed cart. This was a horrible accident that I hope will never happen on the smiler or any other coaster. (Edit. I hope my research is correct this took like 5 minutes to write. I hope its correct)

You can hear how bad the winds are

laughing and watching not knowing they were about to experience one of the worst theme park accidents of all time

I wasn’t aware of this ride or any supposed accident but-that is the first coaster I’ve seen designed like that, with such close turns, almost like a knot

The fact they are all laughing and then 1 minute later they would of been watching in fear.

I like how so much attention was brought to this ride after the crash But someone dies in an American park like every year and nobody gives a shit for more than a week

It’s the fact the ride stopped when it detected that a car had stopped. And a person overrode it.

everyones saying that its a different day but how come this original post was posted on june 3rd 2015, also it stops in the exact same place that the crash ends up happening

I know it was a long time ago now but seeing the cart not making the invertion. It still makes me feel awful. Just looking on it on here makes me have majer angsiorty never let alon being there in person

Rare footage

The scar part is that you can faintly hear the roaring of what I THINK is the cart that crashes although it could be oblivion

There was enough time before the next car to be dispatched that any of those people could’ve brought attention to it

the coaster/train:help I can't get up:(. Oblivion:you can do it!

We need to rename this ride “The Frowner” and have a “Ministry of Terror”

You can hear how strong the wind was in this video... they should never have attempted to operate it in these conditions.

You can hear how windy it is and they still operated it. 🤦‍♂️

And this is why you should always check the cameras to see if anything got stuck on the track, they legitimately didn't look and let a full train of passengers go.

i just know that theres someone out there who recorded the whole crash but doesnt know how to upload youtube videos, but for now, all we have are 5 fps cctv footage and videos showing before and after

Damn someone that isn't actually clickbait

Mate I’m am so happy you found that for me bc I am boses with thee smliler

Wasnt it super cloudy the day of the accident? Because valleys are pretty common. So this could be any number of events where the train valleys and the crew does their job

Crazy how it went from laughing at the cart to being shocked at the 2nd cart

Its honestly really sad, i love this ride so much and its tragic to have that incedent happen once i saw it in the news i had a fear if that place for ages but at least it the safest ride going now

The wind in my ears with headphones

poor people

The laugh irl💀

Oh wow, just reading the comments looking for context: I've heard about this crash. That actually elevates this footage to; as one commenter described: as haunting 😳

I wonder how they would reset a train car that got stuck like this. How would they tow it to the end?

Why are people in the comment section slagging off a kid for laughing? Firstly this was before the crash happened and secondly how do they know what he was laughing at? Weirdo's.

Smile ride sure buddie

"seems this rollercoaster is about to crash but also ayo man sick shoes!"

I went on that when I was in yr6 and I didn’t know this happened before. If I did, I’d be so freakin scared 😱 THATS TERRIFYING

This makes me wonder if maybe theme parks should give out an emergency number to call if you see anything dangerous. It’s crazy how hundreds of people standing here and queuing saw this accident waiting to happen but there was no way of communicating that to the ride operators

Imagine the people in the queue like ‘Ono we ain’t gettin on’

The smile crash isn’t actually a crash it’s just a part where the ride accidentally slowed down on one loop

Smile ride

can youtube stop reminding my intrusive-thought-riddled ass that this crash happened when im going to a theme park in a few weeks

For anyone who is not fully sure of what happened: So, I’m pretty sure there was a cart with a red flashing light on (warning sign) so they took it off the track. But they needed to make their money so they added a fifth cart onto the ride. They did a quick tester and then they saw that the tester cart was on the track as it got stuck as they let the next group go, and that group got stuck at the top of the ride,so they called the engineers who weren’t aware of the fifth cart stuck on the track, so they thought everything was fine, so they made the group of people carry on their ride. This is when the tragic crash happens. They go down the part where the fifth cart was stuck and just like that, in 2 seconds everyone with broken fingers, scars, people wishing they never went on the smiler. I pray for them today and hope they are okay. Hope this helped!

honestly, it's surprising how people react to it before the actual incident, as it seems people are laughing at the ride operator being a dingus, and are expecting them to notice the train and take the coaster out of service

Gives me nightmares what happened next...

Quite a rare piece of footage actually

The people: *laughing* People on the ride: *AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*

I get chills

Aayyy my brother was on that when it crashed man got fuckin whiplash

How do they even get the train off that section of the track? Do they push it?

The smiler is my favourite ride

You should have recorded it all

Moments before disaster 😢

why was someone laughing..

Why did you not tell because if you did it would have stopped 8 people from losing there legs and 16 people seriously ingerored

This ride had suffered multiple rollbacks prior to the crash. What evidence is there that this is the one preceding the infamous accident?

Oh wait it does do that back and fourth thing at least that’s what I think I’m actually not sure and I can’t assume that it’s true

Smile ride? Don’t u mean smiler..

there where laughing so much it it made me think "Oh crap they got marmalised"

I was on it yesterday loved it

Just so disturbing to me

I’m not sure if this was actually the day that the crash happened or another time a train stalled on the bat wing element because it was very dark and cloudy on footage of the crash.

I went on this today and it was truly a traumatizing experience (i realised later it was actually good, just me who isnt experienced with big rides, i dont want to scare anyone i reccommend it :) ) but seeing this video now scares the hell out of me

3 years later TommyInnit (Tom Simons) went on the same ride ( correct me if I’m wrong)

...and to think they spent 20 minutes checking that there was no train on the circuit before overriding it.

minutes before absolute disaster

Ever heard of a test

If he filmed a few more minutes we would have all seen the tragic accident that ruined a bit of the smilers and Alton towers reputation

Are you sure this is from the day of the crash, or just when it used to valley alot between 2013-2015? Just curious. 🤨

It's called The Smiler.....not the smile ride.

What about the overcast?

The fact no one said anything too cause surely they’d have it fixed before they let anyone onto the ride right?

Everyone’s laughing man, don’t even realise how bad it’s about to become

Were you LAUGHING AT THEM SCREAMING IN PAIN???😡

Loc.?