Controversies
Controversies tied to this brand in public sources. A listing is not a finding of fault.
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2020
Ardent Leisure fined over Dreamworld ride deaths
Fine or penalty
Ardent Leisure was fined $3.6m after pleading guilty to safety charges relating to the 2016 Thunder River Rapids ride tragedy at Dreamworld, in which four people died. The magistrate found the company had failed in its primary safety duty to the public.
Company response
Apology — Ardent Leisure
Ardent’s senior counsel, Bruce Hodgkinson, opened submissions with an apology to the families and all those affected by the 2016 tragedy.
Source excerpt
On Monday, Ardent Leisure — a company that owns multiple amusement parks — was fined $3.6 million Australian dollars in connection with the deaths of the four park-goers after pleading guilty to three safety charges this past summer,
The operator of Australia's Dreamworld theme park has been fined A$3.6m (£2m; $2.5m) over the deaths of four people on a malfunctioning water ride.
The four people — Kate Goodchild, Roozi Araghi, Cindy Low and Luke Dorsett — died in October 2016 after a collision on the Queensland park’s Thunder River Rapids ride caused the raft they were aboard to flip over, according to CNN.
2016
Thunder River Rapids Ride incident
A fatal incident involving Dreamworld’s Thunder River Rapids Ride led to heightened public and regulatory scrutiny of amusement-device safety and contributed to Queensland’s introduction of a major amusement park licensing regime. The supplied sources do not provide sufficient detail to summarize the investigation or legal consequences comprehensively.