(AP) – The chief executive of Six Flags says the company will install seat belts on the Georgia roller coaster from which a rider fell to his death earlier this month. The company\u2019s rides with similar restraints will also get the safety upgrade.<\/p>\n
The theme park operator announced the extra safeguard less than two weeks after 42-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem of Atlanta died after being ejected from his seat on the Goliath coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are reinforcing safety precautions at our parks and taking additional measures, including adding seat belts on Goliath and other coasters with a similar restraint,\u201d John Reilly, president and CEO of Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n
Goliath remains shut down while state and local officials investigate the Oct. 12 death.<\/p>\n
Reilly didn\u2019t specify which other Six Flags coasters will get seat belts. But it has temporarily closed eight additional roller coasters at five other parks in the U.S. and Canada. Those rides all share the same manufacturer and a similar restraint system.<\/p>\n
Six Flags hasn\u2019t said when those coasters are expected to reopen. Reilly\u2019s statement said Six Flags has enlisted independent engineers and inspectors to review safety procedures for all rides at its theme parks.<\/p>\n
Investigators haven\u2019t said what went wrong on the Georgia coaster. Witnesses said they saw Kariem rise up out of his seat and fall headfirst back into the cart before being ejected. Some people who rode Goliath before him that day said they had concerns about its restraints.<\/p>\n
All nine of the Six Flags coasters taken offline were manufactured by the Swiss company Bolliger & Mabillard. They also feature similar clamshell restraints that sit at the top of a vertical bar between each rider\u2019s knees. The bar locks a padded restraint into place over the rider\u2019s lap and upper legs.<\/p>\n
The U.S. patent granted to Bolliger & Mabillard for the restraint system in 2001 says it\u2019s designed to make each rider feel \u201cthat he is seated on a flying carpet or that he is at the controls of a kind of flying scooter, while still guaranteeing optimum security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the death in Georgia, non-Six Flags theme parks SeaWorld Orlando in Florida and La Ronde in Montreal, Canada, also temporarily closed one roller coaster apiece that use clamshell restraints.<\/p>\n
SeaWorld reopened its Mako coaster Tuesday after it had been offline for a week. The Associated Press emailed the company Saturday asking if seat belts or other safety upgrades were planned for the coaster.<\/p>\n
The AP also emailed a spokesperson for La Ronde seeking an update on its shuttered coaster.<\/p>\n
In addition to Goliath in Georgia, eight coasters remain closed at Six Flags parks in Gurnee, Illinois; Jackson Township, New Jersey; Charlotte, North Carolina; Mason, Ohio; and Vaughan, Ontario.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(AP) – The chief executive of Six Flags says the company will install seat belts on the Georgia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,323573,323576,323577,323578,323579,319693,323574,319694,323575,323580],"class_list":["post-945440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-georgia-six-flags","tag-goliath-accident","tag-goliath-rollercoast","tag-rollercoaster-accident","tag-rollercoaster-six-flags","tag-six-flags","tag-six-flags-accident","tag-six-flags-over-georgia","tag-six-flags-over-georgia-accident","tag-six-flags-rollercoaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}