Great America Whizzer: 11 injuries by 1979
The Whizzer at Great America logged 11 reported injury incidents before 1979 due to a braking system that repeatedly failed to engage properly.
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California's Great America: The Whizzer and Kyle Foss (1980)
At 33:00 · chapter starts 32:30
California's Great America, developed by Marriott and opened in 1976, was a smaller-scale competitor to Disneyland. Its flagship ride, Willard's Whizzer, was also its most dangerous: the braking system repeatedly failed to engage, and trains sometimes bumped each other at the terminal. Eleven injury incidents were documented before a 1979 evaluation. The fatal accident came on March 29, 1980, when 13-year-old Kyle Foss was climbing aboard the last car in a Whizzer train as a second train rolled in. A 'false electrical signal' had tricked the braking system into thinking it was holding a phantom train; when the system corrected itself and released the brakes, the real train was already pulling in, and it struck the car where Kyle was standing. He was crushed to death. Three other passengers were ejected from the ride and landed in a pond. Despite park officials initially claiming nothing was wrong, Vice President J. Robert Schultz's own technical explanation made clear the ride's electronics had misfired fatally.
Great America's Whizzer: A Braking Problem Nobody Fixed
California's Great America Whizzer coaster had 11 documented injury incidents before 1979 due to braking failures. In 1980, a 'false electrical signal' caused the braking system to open just as a real train pulled into the station, crushing 13-year-old Kyle Foss to death as he was boarding.
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