Thunder River Rapids Ride should have had automatic controls

A safety report in to the Thunder River Rapids ride in 2003 found no safety breaches, an inquest has been told. It comes after damning claims about the ride by a leading safety inspector following the 2016 tragedy that killed four people.

A SAFETY report in to the Thunder River Rapids ride in 2003 found no safety breaches, an inquest has been told.

At least four officers from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland attended the park in October 2003 to perform an audit on the doomed attraction.

However, the report concluded by reporting they “found no evidence of any breach of the Workplace Health and Safety Act”.

It also issued no statutory notices of issues or defects.

Acting for Ardent Leisure, barrister Bruce Hodgkinson told inspector Ian Stewart at least four inspectors had viewed the ride at that time and none of them raised issues that Mr Stewart did in his report in to the 2016 tragedy.

11.15am: Damning comments over Dreamworld ride

A LEADING safety inspector has told an inquest he could have written dozens of improvement notices for the doomed Thunder River Rapids ride if it had continued to operate after the 2016 tragedy.

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s principal inspector Ian Stewart wrote a prohibition notice for the ride during his investigation into the tragedy.

However, he said he discovered so many concerns he could have written at least 80 improvement notices if the ride had still been operating.

The ride was shut down after the accident and never operated again.

He also said he had “no confidence at all in what Dreamworld had in place to save lives” if people fell in to the water on the ride.

10.30am: Ride ‘should have had automatic controls’

A SAFETY inspector who reviewed the Thunder River Rapids disaster has told an inquest there should have been automatic controls to prevent the tragedy.

Ian Stewart, the principal inspector for Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, spent 10 days at Dreamworld after the tragedy which claimed four lives, said ride operators on duty had ‘a lot of tasks’ to monitor in general, let alone in the event of an emergency.

“You can not rely on administrative control,” he said.

“You need to move on to engineering controls.

“Either that or don’t use the ride.”

The inquest has previously heard that operators on duty at the Thunder River Rapids were compromised from having to perform more than a dozen tasks in the space of a single minute.