Six Flags is facing mounting criticism for their extreme thrill rides after a father plunged to his death from a roller coaster in Georgia on Monday, while riding with his son.
The tragedy comes less than two weeks after Six Flags permanently retired its X2 coaster at California’s Magic Mountain amid lawsuits alleging the ride caused traumatic brain injuries.
More than 100 people have come forward claiming harm from the ride, which featured rotating seats that flipped passengers during high-speed drops and turns. Two women underwent emergency brain surgery after riding it in July, according to a CNN investigation.
The amusement park giant has increasingly embraced extreme, high-speed attractions, including so-called “hypercoasters”—massive rides that can stand up to 300 feet tall and fling passengers through stomach-churning drops and turns.
These terror towers are big business. In 2025, they helped lure 47.4 million visitors to the park and generated billions in revenue.
But after Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, 42, died after falling from Six Flags’ Goliath hypercoaster on Monday (the ride was shut down along with nine similar attractions across North America), the incidents raise a question: In the pursuit of bigger, faster thrills, are amusement parks pushing the limits of passenger safety?
The hidden physical risks
Amusement parks thrive on making riders feel imperiled without causing injury—but experts tell The Post that as thrill seekers demand more adrenaline than ever, safety isn’t guaranteed.
David Bertozzi, president of the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials, acknowledged that roller coasters aren’t failsafe, and their extreme builds have injured some riders.
“They’ve gotten a little more risky, I would say, over the years,” Bertozzi told The Post.
He recalled an industry push toward making rides “bigger, faster, bigger, faster,” requiring engineers to carefully calculate the G-forces—gravity forces—that passengers experience during steep drops and turns.
But even when a ride functions as designed, it can put physical stress on passengers—meaning even if a roller coaster’s machinery works perfectly, the body might still be damaged.
Cardiologist Dr. Mark L. Meyer told The Post that rapid acceleration, abrupt head movements, and adrenaline can spike heart rate and blood pressure, while sudden movements can strain the neck and spine.
Rare cases of strokes, arterial injuries and bleeding inside the skull have been reported following amusement rides, though direct causation hasn’t been established.
People with underlying cardiovascular, neurological or spinal conditions may be particularly vulnerable. In 2006, for example, a park-goer with a congenital heart condition died after suffering a heart attack on the same Six Flags Goliath ride.
“We should not confuse something that is physiologically stressful with something inherently dangerous. Those are two different things,” Meyer cautioned.
Still, industry figures show a rise in roller coaster injuries.
A National Safety Council report for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions estimated 652 roller coaster injuries across North America in 2024, up from 458 in 2023.
The rate climbed from 0.88 to 1.27 injuries per million coaster rides—roughly 44%—although the odds of serious injury on any fixed-site amusement ride remain about 1 in 15.5 million. But just driving a car, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 7,770 people died during the first three months of 2026.
“All amusement rides, including roller coasters, are remarkably safe in relation to the number of exposures,” Kathryn Woodcock, a Toronto Metropolitan University professor who studies amusement ride safety, told The Post.
“These events are newsworthy in part because of how rare they are.”
How can a ride pass inspection and still pose risks?
The X2 controversy raises another question: How can a roller coaster repeatedly pass safety inspections while passengers continue reporting serious injuries?
Part of the answer lies in what inspectors examine — and how often.
Woodcock explained that parks conduct daily checks, while more extensive inspections occur at intervals set by manufacturer recommendations and state requirements.
“The specific thing that failed was not necessarily something that is inspected daily,” she said.
“Internal cracking of structures, for example, is inspected using specialized technologies, and is scheduled at specific intervals.”
But mechanical inspections don’t always determine the safety of individual riders and how a human body experiences the coaster’s twists and drops.
Bertozzi said that at minimum, recurring head injuries associated with a particular attraction should prompt further investigation into its restraints, design and movements.
“If you have a couple of incidents, then you know it’s something you really should look into,” he said.
But repeated complaints don’t automatically mean an attraction is unsafe, according to Professor Woodcock. Operators must determine whether the injuries share a common cause, whether the ride operated within established safety standards, and why any passengers were injured.
She cautioned that parks may investigate complaints behind the scenes even while rides remain operational.
“Owner/operators do not share their internal safety reports with the public and have varying regulatory obligations for reporting,” she said, which can leave riders with limited insight into previous complaints or safety investigations.
A patchwork of state regulations
Currently, America lacks a national regulation board for roller coasters.
Instead, individual states oversee permanent amusement park rides, creating a patchwork of safety requirements nationwide.
While parks conduct daily inspections, independent or state checks may occur only once a year, depending on the jurisdiction. Some states have no mandatory inspection programs at all.
Bertozzi praised New York’s inspection program and noted that Georgia also has state oversight, but said some operators elsewhere aren’t required to hire independent inspectors.
“I do some work out west, and I’m the inspector. The state doesn’t require anything else,” he said. “If those people that hire me decide that they don’t want to do an inspection, they don’t have to.”
Even daily inspections have limitations. Inspectors wouldn’t necessarily dismantle a coaster’s seats every morning to look for hidden problems, Bertozzi explained.
“If there’s something internal in that seat, they won’t pull a seat apart every day,” he said. “They’d never open a ride.”
And in states without enforceable inspection requirements, inspectors who identify serious safety concerns may lack the authority to shut down a ride.
“The problem is in a state that has no regulations, those people don’t have to listen to me because I have no authority to shut them down,” Bertozzi said.
“Every state should have some type of an inspection program, he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me that there’s just no requirement. The country needs to start paying attention,” he added, citing numerous incidents that have happened this year.
“There’s been people thrown out of swings. There’s been just accidents that we’ve never seen before. And they’re not every time, but a lot of times they’re in states where the inspections are just a little weak.”
Woodcock added that even extensive industry safety standards aren’t automatically legally binding.
“Standards themselves have no force. It requires a law to adopt the standards into requirements in the jurisdiction,” she said.
Who is responsible when something goes wrong?
Michael P. McCready, managing partner at McCreadyLaw Injury Attorneys, said parks and potentially manufacturers or maintenance contractors may face liability when injuries result from negligence or defective equipment.
“Roller coasters are supposed to scare you, not hurt you,” he told The Post. “People accept the thrill of a roller coaster. They don’t accept negligence.”
After a serious accident, investigators should review maintenance records, restraints, design, and prior complaints to see whether warning signs were overlooked.
“Fixing a piece of equipment and understanding why an accident happened are two different things,” McCready said.
“There’s a difference between an unforeseeable accident and a tragedy that reasonable precautions could have prevented.”