A North Carolina amusement park took passengers on its high-speed 'giga' roller coaster for 'maybe 6 to 10 days' while one of its steel supports was visibly cracked, labor official says

• An amusement park ran a roller coaster for days while it had a cracked beam, a labor official said.
• One of its steel pillars was visibly fractured in a video posted on June 30 by a park visitor.
• The ride, described as North America's "tallest, fastest, longest giga coaster," closed on July 1.

An amusement park in North Carolina was operating a high-speed roller coaster for "maybe six to 10 days" while one of its steel pillars was fractured, a state labor official said.

The Fury 325 roller coaster, which can take 32 passengers at a time, was shut down on July 1 by the Carowinds amusement park after staff were notified of a crack at the top of one of the ride's steel pillars.

And according to North Carolina Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson, the crack may have been visible as early as 10 days before the ride's closure.

"It looks like maybe six to 10 days prior, some pictures had been taken that shows the beginning of the crack, and then by obviously last Friday, the thing was completely severed," he told the Associated Press on Friday.

A visitor to Carowinds, Jeremy Wagner, posted a video on June 30 that showed the Fury 325's track wobbling as a coaster car sped past the cracked pillar.

Wagner told CNN that park staff seemed "nonchalant" when he alerted them.

"I felt there was no urgency in any of the employees," he told the outlet. 

Carowinds' website describes the Fury 325 as the "tallest, fastest, longest giga coaster in North America," and compares it to "an angry hornet chasing its target."

The ride reaches speeds of up to 95 miles per hour with a peak height of 325 feet, and features a "190-foot tall barrel turn" and an 81-degree drop, per Carowinds. Visitors must be at least 4 feet and 6 inches tall to ride the coaster.

In a statement to Insider on Thursday, a representative for Carowinds said the ride's manufacturer, Bolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers Inc., designed the ride with "redundancies in place to ensure the safety of guests in the event of an issue" like the cracked beam.

The park has ordered a new support beam that is expected to be delivered over the next week, the spokesperson said.

Staff will then examine the Fury 325 with an accelerometer, and test and inspect the ride for "500 full cycles," they added. The park also intends to add drones with cameras to "access and inspect hard-to-reach areas."

Carowinds did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours about Dobson's remarks.