Passengers stranded mid-air on zoo ride with history of mechanical issues
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A power surge stalled the “Skyline” ride Saturday afternoon at the Indianapolis Zoo, stranding nine people in the gondola cars for more than an hour.
Zoo representatives defended the ride’s safety system Monday in a statement emailed to News 8 and confirmed passengers exited Skyline safely after staff “flipped breaker switches all over the zoo.”
Skyline previously malfunctioned mid-air at least four other times.
The first documented mechanical failure affecting passengers occurred in October 2014, several months after the ride opened, when six people were trapped following a gearbox issue.
The following summer, at least two incidents occurred over the span of several weeks. A tripped circuit breaker shut the ride down in June 2016, stranding ten people above the zoo’s orangutans. A motor issue trapped eight people in the air in July 2016.
Less than a year later – following an internal investigation and temporary closure of the ride – another mechanical issue stalled Skyline in June 2017, leaving five people trapped in the gondolas.
“It’s common for new rides to experience reliability issues like we had the first couple of years when it opened in 2014,” Indianapolis Zoo spokesperson Judy Palermo said in a statement to News 8. “Those reliability issues were worked out. The ride’s safety systems have always performed as designed.”
The power surge blamed for the latest incident “affected the zoo much like it would affect your home or an office building,” Palermo explained.
Power supplied from an external source surged, she said, triggering a safety mechanism that shut the ride down.
Michael Fleenor, a News 8 viewer who snapped a photo of passengers trapped in gondola cars dangling overhead, said he and his family exited the ride minutes before the sudden malfunction.
“We were eating ice cream and we heard a big squealing noise,” he said. “So we looked up and saw all the Skyline cars were stopped.”
Other visitors were not surprised, according to Fleenor, who spoke to several guests with zoo memberships as they watched the spectacle overhead.
“Some of the members, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this happens basically on a daily basis,’” he told News 8 incredulously. “I’m like, ‘What?!’”
The company responsible for manufacturing Skyline did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Indiana Department of Homeland Security officials in charge of safety inspections at the zoo did not immediately reply to emails from News 8.
A spokesperson for the Indianapolis Fire Department (IFD) emailed the following statement to News 8 in response to questions about the department’s role in passenger rescue operations:
“While IFD has responded in the past for the [Skyline] ride, IFD has not responded for an issue with the ride for at least a year if not longer. Since the ride was put into operation, IFD and the zoo have conducted many joint trainings on the operation of the ride and mitigation should an incident occur. The zoo has a very robust procedure in place and is fully capable of an in-house response but does know they can call us when needed.”