The Disney World Monorail Disaster 2009 | Plainly Difficult Short Documentary

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On July 5, 2009, Pink and Purple monorail trains collided on the Epcot line at the Transportation and Ticket Center Disney World Florida....

And yes this episode reminds me of the Simpsons too….

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CHAPTERS:

00:00 Intro
02:01 Background
05:19 Signalling
08:11 Disaster
13:18 Aftermath

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[whofandb]

The 21 yr old pilot of the monorail who died was Austin Wuennenberg. Wuennenberg's mother has settled her civil lawsuit with Disney over the death of her only son. In a statement, her attorney said, "She is satisfied with the terms of the agreement, but as any parent who has lost a child knows, it's a pain that never goes away."

[panqueque]

"I was a child and thus, an idiot"
I approve of this child slander.

[swaggerdagger]

Losing someone you know at a place like Disney world would be an awful experience to say the least for MANY reasons

[treavormiller]

I’ve actually ridden in the front car with the driver on the monorail in California In the summer of 2009, he even let me and my siblings all honk the horn during the ride, the only reason we got to do it was because we had a medical fast pass and for whatever reason we weren’t boarded first and the train filled up before we could get on, the only place left was with the driver so they put us all up there which honing was the highlight of the trip for me because I was 10 and still a pretty big fan of trains at the time.

[leDespicable]

Ironically, the Wuppertal suspended monorail (the one shown as a bad example in the picture where the elephant falls out of one of the carriages) is an integral part of Wuppertal's public transportation system and, despite being over 100 years old, is one of the most successful monorails in the world.
Btw, the elephant survived :P

[xerodelacroix]

I used to work with a guy who's wife worked at Disney World, she got hit by a truck in the maintenance tunnels and the company tried to sue her before she could sue them, Disney ended up settling out of court to protect their image, and didn't really leave my friend's wife any room to negotiate, as she needed about half a million dollars in surgery and therapy.

[InsomniacFlaaffy]

"I was a child, thus an idiot." I mean, at least he's honest. I can drink to that.

[joeschmo]

My wife and I worked at the CA park back in the early 2000’s. She was a monorail driver for about two years before moving to another department. She can still recall how to operate that thing. By the time this accident happened, we were long gone from that company, but I can tell you that there were a lot of questionable safety things I observed from my time there.

[RelicAmbergris]

I hadn't even heard of this. Then again, Disney has a vast dark history that's been hidden with a friendly exterior.

[RR]

There was a fatality on the not yet opened JFK Airport Monorail in 2002 when it derailed and struck a wall. The operator, who worked for a contractor, would have survived but was crushed by heavy unsecured concrete ballast in the car meant to simulate passengers.

[BenjaminMagnusGames]

Worked there for years (after this). We were mandated to work in unsafe conditions almost daily.

[FunkyFreshCaesar]

Ok, I’m now thoroughly creeped out. I was at Disney World on holiday about a week after this happened in 2009 and had NO idea this accident had even occurred. Just shows how good Disney are at hiding this stuff I guess.

[therealteal]

A monorail driver literally let me drive the thing at 10 years old. You’d think the driver would set autopilot and make it appear I wasn’t. But no the dude literally shoved me off to take control when I sneezed and made the whole train jerk.

It scares me, in retrospect, how much danger we had put the other passengers in.

[hopejoons]

the only time i've been to disney parks was on july 6-9 2009 lol, literally RIGHT after the crash. i remember it bc i was excited to ride it but we saw on the news at the hotel that there was a crash and it was shut down. i could probably find pictures from that trip since it's still my fav childhood memory, but it's so crazy.

[worawatli]

To operate the switch without looking at cctv is like trying to operate a tower crane without looking at the hook. Insane stuff.

[JesamyPorter]

I was working at Magic Kingdom that day. It’s a day I’ll never forget. I got to the cast parking lot (which is behind MK and you have to take a bus to the utilidor from there) and at the bus stop it was utter chaos. All the monorails were shut down. There were confused guests everywhere trying to board the cast member bus.
My phone was ringing non stop from my family calling because they saw the incident on the news and were asking if I was okay.

I was new at Disney so I didn’t know the pilot directly but I knew lots of people who knew him. It was a very sad and dark day I’ll never forget.

Luckily when I was a kid in 1998 I did get a chance to ride in the front of the monorail and I’m not gonna lie. It was truly one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. It’s sad no one can ride in the front anymore but I think it’s for the best.
I’ve even ridden in the flight deck of a passenger plane after 9/11 and the monorail is actually way cooler than that!

[robertoXCX]

The Disney Empire is really concerning to me. I've never been to any of their parks, but I've heard wonder/horror stories about them. How everything is so intricately catered to the experience from the sightlines to the smells, and to the "never break the magic, for the sake of the children" of it all while practically drinking your money with a straw.

I'd much rather go to a park like Cedar Point where the rides ARE the attraction and you're not going to go broke for a fun day and/or vacation

[SandrA-hrzk]

Most people fail to explain the scenario. This accident happened on July 5 at 2am. The night of July 4th, the busiest day of the entire year for Disney World. During that week, the parks open an hour earlier than usual, and the Magic Kingdom hosts Extra Magic Hours for resort guests by opening an additional hour earlier. Then the park is kept open later than usual by closing at 1am. (During Christmas week, the Magic Kingdom will close at 1am with EMH for resort guests until 4am and reopen in just 3 hours).
Because guests can go from park to park, they will often park in the morning and then use the internal system to get around. At closing time, the monorails will operate for one to two hours past closing to shuffle guests between the lots.
This was also 2009... before the age of iphones/facetime/fancy phones. It was the height of Blackberry and full keyboards, and texting outweighed the use of the internet, if you even had it. So there wasn't likely any visuals by the supervisor off property. But I don't exactly blame the guy for finally getting a break to get something to eat. Managers don't really have that much more freedom when it comes to break times. So it isn't likely this manager was away from the TTC all night or something crazy.

I used to ride all the time up front until they stopped it. I still would if they allowed it. But I can also see it from the perspective of unnecessary conversations of "did you know the guy?" "did you see it happen?" "what happened?" and not wanting to be that CM hearing it for the millionth time.

It was a bunch of little errors that all lined up perfectly to create this, and most of that was probably brought on by shear exhaustion at the end of the day for the CM working.

[sterlinsilver]

I remember as a kid going into the cockpit of the monorail circa 2006. It was so friggin awesome. Monorails are still my favorite mode of transportation to this day. Kind of sad that kids won't be able to have that magical experience in the future but I guess if it's safer...

[AcornElectron]

Keep up the difficult work fella and, as always, stay safe!