Twenty tourists are left hanging face down above a 15-storey drop when rollercoaster malfunctions

Twenty terrified tourists are left hanging face down above a 15-storey drop when their tilting rollercoaster malfunctions

  • Gravity Max ride in West Taiwan malfunctioned while 20 people were sat on it
  • Carriage tilted forwards then backwards twice before train was finally righted
  • Ride is first tilting roller coaster in world and lines up with separate set of tracks 
  • All 20 riders were asked to leave the 15-storey-high coaster platform on foot 

Twenty terrified people were left perched on the edge of a 15-storey drop when a tilting roller coaster they were on malfunctioned. 

The Gravity Max ride is the first of its kind to bring riders to the edge of a horizontal platform before tilting the train 90 degrees to line up with a separate set of tracks.

But the 20 tourists visiting LIHPAO Discovery Land in Taichung’s Houli District in West Taiwan on 30th January found themselves hanging face down for longer than they had anticipated.

The ride comes back up to the top during the malfunction

The carriage tilts over the edge of the 13-storey high platform, left, before coming back up to the stop, right, at LIHPAO Discovery Land in West Taiwan

A suspected misalignment caused the train to tilt forwards then backwards on two occasions before the train was finally righted.

The 20 riders were asked to leave the 15-storey-high roller coaster platform on foot.

Video shows the thrill seekers hanging head down while on the red ride before it slowly starts to tilt back up towards the tracks.

Dozens of children and other tourists can be seen standing in front of the roller coaster watching the carriage going back up.  

Theme park director Wang Yung-hao revealed that the fully seated tilting train was unable to properly line up with the vertical tracks below.

The misalignment caused the ride’s fail-safe to kick in, preventing the train from being released by the hooks holding it and its 20 passengers in place.

The train is tilted to match up with another set of tracks

All 20 people on board were asked to walk off the ride

Gravity Max is the first of its kind to bring riders to the edge of a horizontal platform before tilting the train 90 degrees, right and left, to line up with an entirely separate set of tracks

Engineers inspected the ride and reopened it just 20 minutes later, Wang said they were satisfied that the fail-safe would prevent riders from coming to any harm.

Wang revealed misalignment can happen in strong winds – anything over 6 on the Beaufort scale – or during heavy rain or fog.

He reassured visitors that they were ‘100 percent safe’ on Gravity Max, which is also called the ‘Tilt Coaster’ or ‘Cliffhanger’.

The affected tourists were each given theme park coupons worth 150 TWD (3.7 GBP) for their troubles.

The Cliffhanger was opened in 2002 and has 580 metres (1,900 feet) of track. Its highest point takes riders to 49 metres (160 ft) and it reaches speeds of 94 kph (58 mph). 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk