A rollercoaster malfunction at Pleasurewood Hills theme park in Lowestoft, Suffolk, left 27 people stranded approximately 50 feet in the air for more than two hours on bank holiday Monday. The incident occurred on the Wipeout ride just before 1:30 p.m.
Stacey Stewart, 31, was on the ride with her daughters Poppy, 8, and Marnie, 7, when the attraction came to a halt. According to Stewart, the rollercoaster stopped while changing direction midway through its course. After approximately 10 minutes, a manual release was attempted, which caused the carriage to move backward through its loops before stopping again, leaving riders suspended.
"It was horrendous, really scary," Stewart told the Daily Mail. "They had to manually release the ride, allowing us to shoot backwards. The girls are now shook up and so am I."
Onlookers, including Stewart's partner Joseph Bowman with their two younger daughters, watched from below as emergency services worked to free the passengers. Firefighters used cherry pickers and specialist rescue equipment to bring everyone to safety. The rescue operation concluded at 4:05 p.m., with no injuries reported.
Honey Purkiss, 13, who was also on the ride, described the moment the carriage moved backward. "He put the metal bar in to release it and I was watching the whole time. As it started going down, he looked completely fine. But when it went past the point where it was supposed to stop, his face changed. It dropped, and he looked absolutely horrified."
The Wipeout ride, which opened in 2007, is described on the park's website as the "ultimate adrenaline rush" and features six inversions. It underwent a £1 million transformation for the 2024/25 season, including new trains with waist restraint lap bars. In 2017, firefighters rescued a man trapped on the same rollercoaster after a breakdown during heavy rainfall.