Goliath Roller Coaster Fall Shuts Rides From Georgia to Montreal

The Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia is still shut, and the fallout has now spread across North America, with twelve coasters halted at parks from Florida to Montreal. According to the Associated Press, police and a state safety regulator are still working out how a rider fell from the ride on Monday.

Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, a forty-two-year-old school employee from Atlanta, died after being ejected from his seat. Witnesses described seeing him thrown from the Goliath roller coaster, and some riders who went before him have raised concerns about the restraints.

What we know about the fall

Kariem was thrown from his seat and struck other patrons before landing below the ride, according to police. Four people were hurt, and Cobb County police told local station FOX 5 Atlanta that all four injured passengers were juveniles. Officers at the park responded at three fifty-eight in the afternoon.

Goliath is one of the park's headline attractions and towers over the entrance. It opened in 2006, its first hill climbs two hundred feet, and it hits a top speed of seventy miles per hour. It does not go upside down. Witness Nick Mendenhall told the AP it looked like Kariem was hovering because the car kept moving underneath him, before he was ejected on the ride's final turn.

Investigators have not said whether this was a mechanical failure, a restraint problem or operator error. Cobb County police are leading the law enforcement side, while the state is running its own safety review.

Riders say the restraints felt off

Some of the most unsettling details come from people who rode earlier in the day. Erica Billups said her son and daughter rode Goliath about an hour before the death and hit a problem with one seat's restraint. Her son tried to lock it, but it kept coming unlocked, so he moved. The coaster then left with that seat empty and the harness up, she posted on X and confirmed to the AP by text.

Summer Bates, who saw Kariem fall, told the AP her older kids kept trying to push their restraints down tighter. She understood why once she rode herself, she said, because the restraints did not feel secure. Six Flags did not immediately respond to the AP about restraint issues.

Twelve coasters dark, including Canadian ones

Six Flags closed nine similar coasters across six parks right after the incident. Per ABC News, the list includes Nitro, Raging Bull, Goliath at Magic Mountain, Fury Three Twenty-Five, Thunder Striker, Orion and Diamondback, plus Behemoth and Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland north of Toronto. CBC reports that La Ronde in Montreal, which was a Six Flags park until this spring, also shut its Goliath until it has certainty the ride can run safely.

On Thursday, SeaWorld Orlando and La Ronde confirmed closures, bringing the total to twelve, the AP says. Ten of the halted coasters share a manufacturer, Bolliger and Mabillard, and a similar restraint setup with the Georgia ride. The Swiss company declined to answer questions and said it will not comment further until it has a better understanding of what happened.

Photos and videos of those ten rides show clamshell restraints, which sit on a vertical bar between the rider's knees and lock a padded piece over the lap. The Georgia Goliath has no backup restraint such as a seat belt.

The safety debate and the investigation

Brian Avery, a University of Florida professor and amusement ride safety expert, told the AP that manufacturers choose restraints after weighing speed, force and track transitions. He favors a backup restraint for riders, but he says the industry has long argued over whether that would slow down lines.

Georgia's Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire said Thursday that investigators and engineers have been on site around the clock. Its most recent inspection of Goliath, on March sixteenth, found no violations, deficiencies, citations or red tags. The state says any ride involved in a fatal accident must stay out of service until a full investigation is done, and it will decide when and how Goliath may run again.

Six Flags Over Georgia plans to reopen to guests Friday, but Goliath will not be running. Park president Richard Pretlow has said there is no anticipated reopening date for the ride.

Why this matters for your next park trip

If you were planning a late-season coaster run, expect gaps. Check your park's ride status before you go, since closures are changing day by day. The bigger story is the question of whether lap-bar-only restraints on giant coasters need a second layer of protection, which is the exact debate Avery described.

For Canadians, this is local news too. Wonderland and La Ronde are both involved, and neither park has said when its closed rides will return. We will keep tracking it on our Canada beat. Read the state's update in the Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire statement, the AP report on more coasters shutting down, and CBC's coverage of the Canadian closures.