"I assisted with the removal of bodies and will never forget the smell of burning tires and plastic," McDonnell said. The Six Flags Haunted Castle Disaster, Jackson Township, NJ May 11, 1984. Hurricane Harbor New Jersey Jackson, NJ. A Haunted House Add-On lets you visit all of our premium haunted houses, which are sold separately from your park admission. Thats a sentiment Chet Schirmer would probably agree with. Unhappy Mother's Day, ''The most tragic thing is these kids died in a place they went to have fun,'' said the high school's principal, Morton Damesek, sitting in his Queens home. In their analysis, activation time depended in part on the properties of the foam and plywood, such as their density, hydration levels, the surface area of the foam, the wood species of the plywood, and more. Author(s): Kathleen Robinson. ''Hey, Sammy,'' he called to his friend, Samuel Valentine, ''have a good time. Fleming then compared residential test data to confirm that the combustible walls could create a 6-megawatt fire. Fire consumed a foam pad inside the Haunted Castle and spread through the structure. Dare to enter the Halloween event of the season, featuring family-friendly attractions during the day.and thrills once the sun goes down. "Everyone who was at Great Adventure that day and anyone who lives around here will never forget that day, as long as they shall live," Smith said. On May 11, 1984, smoke filled the haunted castle as actors dressed as butchers and hunchbacks corralled patrons out of the burning building. ''There's nothing I can tell them to make it easier. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. . 1 A catastrophic fire in the Haunted Castle killed eight teens in 1984 Credit: MYK STREJA / WIKIPEDIA Sprinklers are sometimes thought of as a magic bullet that can solve nearly any fire protection problem, Fairchild says. [28] His testimony was later criticised by other fire-safety experts as undermining efforts to advance sprinkler legislation. [4][38][39] New Jersey and other states passed new fire-safety laws for dark rides and "any structure that intentionally disorients". New York City Board of Education, the State of New Jersey, Ocean County and Jackson Township were also included in the various suits. Free resources: Throughout the evening there was confusion about the fire's toll. ''That's when my mind began wondering if something was wrong,'' Mr. Damesek said. Theyre really just another piece of the overall building safety puzzle, and theyre dependent on the other pieces theyre attached to. [21][23][24], The boy who had come forward as a witness during the initial investigation repeated what he had told investigators earlier, testifying for the prosecution that he had seen another boy his agea boy he did not knowaccidentally set the fire with a cigarette lighter by brushing its flame against a foam wall pad. Read more about code changes prompted by the Haunted Castle fire. In other words, I have an honest uncertainty as to whether sprinklers under these circumstances would have saved the lives. Furthermore, he said, considering the early stages at which the fire was discovered in this particular instance, the installation of smoke detectors or an alarm system would not have had an effect on the ultimate outcome.. They further testified that their pleas for safety precautions had been rejected by management as too expensive. Trial by Fire A new section titled Special Provisions for Special Amusement Buildings was added to the 1988 edition, requiring every special amusement building, such as the Haunted Castle, to be protected throughout by an approvedand properly installed and maintained automatic sprinkler system. Despite this, the Haunted Castle became the parks largest single-show attraction since its construction. . The work by Fairchild and Casterline is the latest chapter in a saga that began with the tragic deaths of eight young people on a spring evening in 1984. The place was just a disaster waiting to happen.. An additional trailer housed the control room, which accessed both sides of the attraction. The combination of the two really unnerved me.. . Norma Quintana, Sam's mother, took dental records to the amusement park Saturday and afterward said her son was among the dead. FDS does not include a fluid delivery model, however, so Fairchild enlisted the help of Mike Mahomet of Tyco, who holds the patent on Tycos fluid delivery time software, SprinkFDT, currently the only UL-listed software on the market for calculating dry-pipe sprinkler system activation times. Using dental records, a pay stub, three class rings, a neckchain, school identification cards and park passes, the authorities have identified the seven young men and one woman, who all died of smoke inhalation. According to court testimony from 14-year-old Joey Iraca, a boy had accidentally set the fire by touching a lighter to the wall mat in the Haunted Castle. The main event of the Halloween season is back! A medieval-styled faade was built for the Haunted Castle on the site of the Alpen Blitz across from the Muzik Express. The one survivor later said they had thought the smoke was part of the amusement. Seven people were treated for smoke inhalation and released from the Freehold Area Hospital, a hospital spokesmen said. Great Adventure officials declined to comment on the film.[44]. It includes walk-through haunted mazes, scare zones, shows, and . An additional trailer housed the control room, which included the electrical panels for the attraction and two pressurized-water fire extinguishers. FDS is known as a field model, where all physical objects, including obstructions, vents, fans, and persons, are entered into the model and given appropriate properties. On May 11, 1984, eight teenage visitors were trapped in this attraction and lost their lives when the structure was destroyed by fire. ''It was still smoking.''. A second juror disagreed, saying that township officials were not derelict. Just as seatbelts and airbags are critical safety components in a car, they would not perform as well if connected to a soap box racer.. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Jose Antonio Carrion. He remembers responding to the fire and says he couldn't tell the difference between the prop skeletons and what was real. The Scene According to park officials, the Haunted Castle is about 70 feet by 100 feet. Today marks the 30th anniversary of the fire that took the lives of eight teenagers trapped inside the Haunted Castle attraction on May 11, 1984. Advancements occurred in new sprinkler technologies, such as quick response, residential, large drop, and early suppression fast response sprinklers, technologies widely used today. As the nine teenagers hid in a corner. Bottom line: So far, at least, even with all their whiz-bang technology, Fairchild and Casterline cannot provide a definitive answer to the question, Would sprinklers have prevented eight teens from dying in the Haunted Castle in 1984? Its just as difficult to say if Schirmers opinion was wrong. She also said she had seen him heading toward the haunted house. They assumed it was something minor.''. Glenn Vallach, a spokesman for the park, said no new evidence had been found. Finally, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for monitoring employee safety. Great Escape. The corridors were covered variously with wood, paper, and fabric, and one was covered with polyurethane foam. [43][44], The film says that two earlier visitors on the day of the fire reported finding an exit door chained shut, but they were not called as witnesses. On May 11, 1984, a fire destroyed the attraction, trapping and killing eight teenagers. Each of the two Haunted Castleattractions consisted of eight commercial truck trailers, connected by wood and plywood and containing a maze of passageways. I realized he laid the groundwork for a great comparisonhe beat the path, and we retraced his steps., For their analysis, Fairchild and Casterline used computer models, courtroom testimony, and any other information they could find. The park built a wooden front that resembled a white, two-story house with forest green shingles and shutters, contained by a wrought-iron fence and gates, and accentuated with stucco planters. They also fascinated him. Finally, Fleming questioned the assumption that standard sprinklers would have responded too slowly and would not have put water high enough on the wall to stop the fire from spreading. He noted that this assumed that the delay was based on the traditional maximum time of water delivery in a test simulating a single sprinkler opening, not that the time of water delivery would have been reduced considerably when multiple sprinklers open, as they would have given the rapid growth of the Haunted Castle fire. The interest was due in part to some of the fundamental questions that arose in its aftermathprimarily as part of an ensuing criminal trialand to the surprising answers generated by those questions. The trailers housed two separate Haunted Castle attractions, mirror images of each other, which operated simultaneously during peak times. New York. The first sprinkler analysis She originally thought it was part of the show but realized the flames were real after smelling smoke. (Only one side was operating the night of the fire.) He said the older youth, who appeared to be familiar with the castle, offered to guide him through. He died last year in North Carolina at the age of 84. Six Flags New England accepts card payments only at all locations including restaurants, retail stores, games, ticket windows, and parking toll booths. 33 Students Missing. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The other three were under 18 years of age, according to a hospital spokesman. '', His father, Peter Sr., added: "There was a lot of smoke and it did not smell like a wood fire. Haunted Castle actually consisted of two separate attractions, mirror images of each other (depicted here in blue and red), connected by a control room. The indictment also charged two park executives, the general manager at the time of the fire and his predecessor, with manslaughter for reckless conduct in ignoring repeated warnings of safety violations.[20]. Read the original NFPA investigation report on the Haunted Castle fire (PDF, 2.2 MB). Cookie Notice What was supposed to be a fun event for a group of teens quickly turned into a nightmare. Officials at the Franklin K. Lane High School said they believed that four of the other victims were friends of Mr. Valentine - three classmates at Lane and one from the Automotive High School in Queens. "Today, I make regular fire inspections at Six Flags Great Adventure.". The Ocean County Medical Examiner, Dr. Walter Corrigan, has made public only two names: Joseph Beyroutey, 17, of Paterson, a senior at Passaic County Technical High School, and Tina Genovese of Williamstown, N.J., who was in her teens. Six Flags Great Adventure Jackson, NJ. [13], Firefighters from eleven surrounding communities responded, and the fire was declared under control by 7:45p.m. The Mystery and Controversy Surrounding the Fire at the Haunted Castle[42] was produced in 2003 by Peter James Smith, a long-time patron of the Haunted Castle. But for the loved ones of a group of teens from New York City the day out would become the stuff of nightmares. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. However, industry sources were reporting that ensuing poor attendance almost caused the park to close in 1987. The Haunted Castle was a spooky walk-through haunted house (as the . Another of the dead was a few dozen feet away from the group, and also within 25 feet of a fire exit. Great Escape . There was nothing there. When the fire was declared under control, at 7:45 p.m., 15 mutual aid companies had responded with 300 firefighters. In past years, the park unleashed the following attractions: 2019 - Cyborg Hyper Drive: A spinning ride in the dark with special effects. Six Flags Great Adventure and its parent company Six Flags were indicted for aggravated manslaughter and accused of recklessly causing . They also testified that a ripped "crash pad"[22] in the corridor had exposed foam rubber padding. Great Adventure Inc. and its parent company, the Six Flags Corporation of Chicago, are on trial on charges of aggravated manslaughter. Great Adventure, New Jersey- Old Haunted House which caught fire and took 8 teenager's lives in May 1985. Schirmer based his opinion on assumptions about the way the fire developed and the results of previous fire testing. Conversely, an analysis of potential sprinkler performance in the Haunted Castle conducted a year after the fire found that sprinklers could have prevented the fatalities. Instead, we can offer probabilities., He stresses that its not game over, though. JACKSON For more than four decades, people have gone to Six Flags Great Adventure for a day of fun, riding roller coasters, playing boardwalk-style games and taking part in other amusements. Spreading rapidly due to the attraction's air conditioning,. The Haunted Castle was a popular attraction at Six Flags. A state panel investigating the fire said that the regulatory system had failed at almost every level, and that the Haunted Castle had been in violation of a dozen state fire codes. A hotline number - (201) 928-2000 - was set up at the popular amusement park to answer questions about the blaze and the victims. Are bearskin hats really made of bear skin? [6] At peak times, the doorman would alternate sides to keep a gap between groups to allow for greater effect and to keep the leaders from warning the following group of upcoming surprises. Fleming performed an exquisite analysis based on the tools available at the time, says Fairchild. Heavy smoke kept the parks firefighters from advancing into the attraction, and a defensive attack was begun at the rear. The defendants denied any culpability. First, Fleming noted that they assumed an exhaust fan would have taken the heat out of the compartment of origin for the first minute after the fire started until it failed. If the building was portable or movable, the sprinkler water supply may be by an approved temporary means., These requirements have been refined and expanded over the years, but their intent remains the same as when they first entered the code. The park's Haunted Castle horror attraction was consumed by flames and left eight people dead all teenagers and seven more injured. Wax mannequins were used as props. Fire chiefs told news outlets at the time: "The fire spread so quickly because of the wind that apparently the victims had no time to escape. On the 11th of May, 1984, a fire began inside the Haunted Castle attraction at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey. Great Escape Lake George, NY. [4] Guests would enter the Castle via the typical switchback guide rails used at amusement parks which led to a gate. Last night, visitors to the scene said that the aluminum was melted, seared and blackened by the blaze.

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