Disney guests trapped on monorail after ‘loud bang and flash of light’
Guests on Walt Disney World Resort’s monorail had a frightening ride as the train suddenly halted and left some of them trapped.
The monorail feet above the ground got jammed on its tracks after blowing a tire on Tuesday morning, a Disney spokesperson told Fox 35 Orlando.
Stuck on board were 71 passengers.
‘There was a loud bang explosion, and then we kind of saw a big flash of light. After that, the monorail slowed down,’ one of the passengers, Kris Lenk, told the news outlet.
‘They told us to pretty much bust open the windows, unfortunately, because the AC wasn’t working, so not sure if the whole monorail just decided to shut off after that loud bang and everything.’
Lenk added that there was some smoke and that the vehicle smelled of burning rubber.
The flat tire occurred near the EPCOT parking lot toll plaza, according to the Disney spokesperson.
Emergency crews rescued all the passengers within an hour and 20 minutes, the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District told the Daily Mail. No one was injured.
‘You know, it was kind of nice to finally get out of there,’ Lenk said.
It is not the first incident on the monorail.
In 2018, a red monorail took guests around the amusement park with a door open, and a woman was recorded holding on to a pole near the opening. She was not hurt and the vehicle was taken out of service, a Disney spokesperson said at the time.
The most serious incident and the only fatality in the more than half century the monorail has been in service occurred in 2009.
A train hit the back of a stationary carriage that was taking guests away from the Magic Kingdom during the last trip of the day. The driver was cut out of the cab and died at the scene. Another employee and a family-of-five survived.
Disney’s monorail in the Orlando area is one of the most-used such transit systems in the globe, with more than 50million people riding it annually. Its stops include the Magic Kingdom theme park, several hotels including Disney’s Contemporary Resort and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort, and the transportation and ticket center.
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