BILLINGS — A drive tire broke free from the Zipper carnival ride Tuesday evening at the MontanaFair in Billings, sending the tire through the air and forcing riders to be evacuated. No one was injured.
The Zipper now sits closed as of Wednesday afternoon while inspectors work to determine what caused the malfunction.
Watch fairgoers talk about the experience:
Mikaela Rykowski and Nevaeh Lynch were standing in line for the ride when it happened.
"It was like one of the last rides that we were gonna go on, and we were standing in line for the Zipper," Lynch said. "I heard a snap. It was, like, a snap, and then a pop. And then I saw it go flying."
"The only thing that we saw was a good old 40-pound tire just, like, flying off...It could have been a lot worse," Rykowski said.
Thomas Carnival general manager Chris Atkins said no one was hurt, and every rider was safely evacuated.
"At no point was there any danger to any of the patrons or anything like that. Everybody's evacuated safely," Atkins said.
Atkins said safety remains the company's top priority as the investigation continues.
"We take incidents very seriously," Atkins said.
For Rykowski, the incident brought back fears following the death of Clayton Phillips, a 13-year-old who died in June after being thrown from a Yo-Yo swing ride at a carnival in Butte.
"I don't know if I can trust getting on one of those rides. It was definitely terrifying. Especially with that little kid that passed away, too, earlier this spring in Butte. That was... I mean, that was probably the first subconscious in my brain why I already had anxiety," Rykowski said.
While that carnival was not associated with Thomas Carnival, Atkins said every ride at the MontanaFair is inspected daily.
"They're recorded in a daily inspection. Every ride has an inspection checklist per ride, individual rides, that we inspect the rides daily," Atkins said.
Atkins said if a problem is found, the ride is taken out of operation until it is fixed.
"The ride operator will contact the supervisor. We'll go through the problem, figure out what it is. If we need to replace parts, we use manufactured parts from the manufacturer. But we'll fix whatever issue we have to have. And if we can't fix it, we'll get it fixed," Atkins said.
As for what caused the tire to come off, Atkins said it is too early to say.
"It's tough to say, and I can't, I don't wanna speculate it until we get all the facts," Atkins said.
Miranda Gilbert, a parent at the fair, said her child's safety comes first.
"The safety of my child is number one, of course. And as well as all the regulations that we have and stuff, parents just need to do their part and do what they feel is best for their child," Gilbert said.
Atkins maintained Thomas Carnival would never operate a ride it believed was unsafe.
"Any ride that we open, we're confident in its safety. We would never open a ride if we ever had any doubts of its safety," Atkins said.
