Melbourne’s Maligned Star Wheel Breaks Down Forcing Punters To Piss In Bags

Ask any Melburnian what their list of city-related fears contains and “getting trapped on the Melbourne Star” would probably feature as a frequent answer.

The highly maligned tourist attraction has been operating reasonably incident free for a number of years now after a highly controversial start to its life, but that all changed on Saturday night when a motor failure caused the attraction to halt, stranding riders up to 120 metres off the ground for more than an hour.

The ride stopped working at around 6:00pm on Saturday evening, with some 95 patrons on-board.

The malfunction was said to have been caused by a problem in one of the wheel’s 32 motors, causing the ride to cease rotating as an automatic precautionary measure.

People who boarded the attraction at around 5:30pm found their trip delayed by as much as an hour, meaning they did not disembark the wheel until after 7:30pm.

Nicole Hill, director of marketing for the wheel, stated that the stoppage was the first in operating company’s five years of looking after the wheel, and that the stoppage was a routine precaution.

We are really sorry that our passengers were inconvenienced last night when the wheel stopped. For the first time in our five years of operating we had a minor technical issue with one of the 32 drive motors. As a result the wheel automatically stopped — as it should.

The wheel famously ceased operating 40 days after its opening in 2009 when foundational cracks were discovered in the wheel – a product of serious design flaws – that caused the ride to remain closed for the following five years.

Interestingly enough, Saturday’s ride stoppage resulted in trapped patrons cracking open the pod’s emergency kits, which contain waste bags to use as temporary toilets, which probably solves the one big question everyone who hasn’t ridden it would have about the attraction.

The kits also contain first aid kits, jelly beans, water, and a deck of playing cards. Some patrons were indeed forced to use the bags in lieu of restroom facilities on-board the attraction.

Much better options than immediately establishing a pee corner, TBH.

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