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Park News - (5/7/08) According to the local news Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom ticket prices will be going down by $15 this season. You can get this discount by brining a specially marked Coke can to the park or just buy your discounted tickets online at the website.
  (4/14/08) The local ABC news station now reports that a maintenance supervisor for Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom has reported that the park workers “did not follow several of the ride manufacturer’s instructions for handling the cable that snapped,” last summer, following up with a claim that before the accident took place they had “never performed a hands-on inspection on any of the cables for the Superman Tower of Power ride.”
  Consider me flabbergasted… if this holds up to be true, then I’ve got to wonder just what kind of state the rest of the rides are in right now. According to this second article, it seems these are additional comments from the November deposition from John Schmidt that were not part of the “public court file”, but were recently provided to the media from the Lasitter family who are suing the theme park.
  (4/10/08) The Kentucky state senate voted unanimously (37-0) in favor to approve a new bill that will prevent anyone under the age of 18 from running an amusement ride. Governor Steve Beshear is said to have supported the bill and will sign it into law, which will bring it into effect by this July. According to this article, only 10 other states require ride ops to be at least 18, and another 17 states only require ride ops to be at least 16, leaving the rest (Kentucky included before this) with no age requirement at all.
  (3/31/08) According to the local news Kentucky’s “house panel” has approved a new measure that would put new requirements on theme parks as far as daily ride inspections and a requirement that all ride operators be at least 18 years old. The plan has now been sent on to the “full House for consideration”. 
  (3/11/08) A new demolition update on the Superman tower can be seen here. Doesn’t look like much of the tower is left at this point.
  (3/3/08) Screamscape has confirmed that Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom will indeed close off the section of the park that includes Twisted Twins, Mile High Falls and Zeppelin for the 2008 season. I’ve been told that a new map is expected to go live on the website soon that there completely delete this area from view. Apparently this is expected to be a big cost saver for the park by not having to staff and run these rides, but combined with the justified removal of Superman, I don’t see how a falling ride count will help sustain or increase park attendance for the season either. As a racing/dueling coaster, closing Twisted Twins would be like shutting down two coasters along with Mile High Falls, the park’s big splash ride which will surely be missed when the heat rises in the summer.
  (2/29/08) I’m not sure why but there is a rumor going around claiming that the “NorthWest Territory” section of Kentucky Kingdom may not open this season. Apparently several of the attractions in this area of the park have also vanished from their usual spots on the website, including Twisted Twins, Mile High Falls, Zeppelin and Blue Moose Café. Anyone know more?
  (2/25/08) A reader sent in a link to a picture showing off the big cranes next to the Superman tower today.
  (2/21/08) Local sources have spotted a pair of construction cranes set up in the park next to the Superman drop tower, so it looks like they will start taking it down any day now.
  (2/1/08) Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom has stated that they have delayed the demolition of the Superman tower ride for a couple of weeks until a series of weekend events at the nearby Expo Center are over.
  (1/31/08) For the first time since last summer’s horrible accident a statement from Kaitlyn Lasitter has been released describing the early stages of the accident when the cable broke and they were only about 20 feet or so above the ground and began screaming for someone to shut off the ride. A new more comments from her can also be found here.
  In a related bit of news, we’ve heard that the tests on the ride’s cables are now complete and have been released to the various parties involved, but not to the general public yet. From here, I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the case goes to court or if the document is damaging enough to Six Flags that they’ll attempt to settle the matter privately.
  (1/15/08) So far from all but one e-mail I’ve received since yesterday, it seems that most of you agree with me that ride ops should be at least 18. After all… since your running a piece of heavy machinery with several riders under your control, wouldn’t it make sense that you would have to be the same age that you need to be to receive a Commercial Drivers License (CDL)? As I understand things, I believe you need a CDL pretty much anywhere in the country to drive a bus, limo or passenger shuttle.It just kind of makes sense to me that some of the same reasons you would want your shuttle driver to be at least 18 would apply to the same person running the ride your on.
  But according to this latest article about the Kentucky Kingdom accident, the state of Kentucky has no such laws preventing 16 year olds from running a ride like Superman: Tower of Power and according to statements from the ride op, it sounds like they received very little other than basic training at all in her 2 to 3 weeks of employment prior to the accident. In fact, in those 2-3 weeks, she had never once even pushed an E-Stop button.
  Interesting personal note from my own brief time as a ride operator… one of the first things they did to us in training at our ride was to make us push the E-Stop, even if the ride wasn’t running. Just to give you the experience of actually pushing the button… to feel what it was like to push it so that you wouldn’t have any hesitation to push it the instant you thought something might be wrong. We were taught that it was always better to err on the side of safety by E-Stoping the ride and restarting it rather than stand by and do nothing at all.
  (1/14/08) Today we’ve got a link to a local news report where the 16 year old ride op who was working on the Superman: Tower of Power attraction during this past summer’s accident claimed that neither she or the other operator were able to hit the E-Stop button in time to do anything. This is despite the fact that in a deposition she did “hear something snap” as the cars climbed up the tower. On a ride like this, I’m surprised that the ride ops are stationed so far away from their E-Stops that they can’t push them in time to stop a problem like this. Given the nature of this kind of attraction, you would think that, similar to some other rides, they would be stationed stand at a specific post during the operational cycle of the ride (enforced by standing on a pressure pad that wont allow the ride to run unless they are in place) where the E-Stop would be right at hand.
  I’ve also got to bring up a personal pet-peeve of my own when it comes to staffing rides. I know laws are different state to state, and the various policies are different company to company, but going back to what I experienced growing up in California as well as what I believe to be true in Florida, I think you should have to be 18 to run a ride. In my travels I’ve been to many parks and seen rides being run by what look like 15 year olds and I’ve got to admit, it does make me nervous at times since I know what I was like at 15, 16 and 17. I’ve worked at a park before… both under and over the age of 18 and we were not able to work the rides until we turned 18, both for legal reasons and as well as maturity reasons.
  While I’ve never been one to back the idea of a federal oversight committee to oversee every little nook and cranny of theme park operations, I wouldn’t mind seeing a federal policy set in place to require ride operators to be at least 18 years old. Now this may cause some parks to panic when it comes to staffing levels, but honestly when your only paying your ride ops $5.15 a hour (what the Superman ride op made), what do you expect? Pay an appropriate wage and staffing wont be an issue. I made more than that when I turned 18 and went to work on a ride back in 1988… nearly 20 years ago.

2008 - Mega Wedgie - (5/2/08) A countdown timer has been added to the official SFKK site confirming May 24th as the grand opening date for Mega Wedgie. You can also see the new logo for the attraction here.
  (4/17/08) The new Mega Wedgie slide is rumored to open at Kentucky Kingdom around May 24th.
  (1/16/08) Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom has announced that they will add a new waterslide this season called Mega Wedgie. The new slide will be located across from Hook’s Lagoon near Deluge and will be a large Bowl style slide where pairs of tube riders will descend down a 100 foot long tunnel that will drop them into a large 30 foot wide bowl where they will spin around until dropping down a small chute in the center that will deposit them in the splashdown pool.