More than a dozen people trapped midair for 90 minutes on Sea World ride on Gold Coast

More than a dozen people were trapped in the air for 90 minutes when a Sea World ride malfunctioned on the Gold Coast.

The theme park initially announced on Tuesday afternoon that the 15 metre-high Vortex ride was “currently experiencing a standard ride stoppage”.

“All 13 guests onboard are safe and our team are communicating with them as we prepare to exit them from the ride,” Sea World said in a statement.

The Queensland ambulance service said it was on the scene while the rescue took place.

Sea World subsequently said the stoppage was caused by a “sensor communication fault”.

“Our engineering team manually lowered the ride to its home position where the guests exited in just over 90 minutes of the ride stoppage,” the company said.

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“Our on-site nurse provided welfare checks in an abundance of caution with them upon exiting the ride.”

Sea World said the Queensland fire department was ready to assist “should the manual process not work” however they were not required.

“Our team regularly train for these exercises and we have a strong working relationship with the QFES team.

“The safety and wellbeing of our guests is our highest priority and ride stoppages are proof rides systems and operators are doing as they are designed and trained to do to keep our guests safe.”

It is the second time in less than a week that passengers at Sea World have been stuck on a ride after the Leviathan roller-coaster stopped after a sensor was activated.

People onboard were stuck on the ride for about an hour last Thursday, with Sea World saying passengers were safe “at all times”.

“At all times throughout the stoppage, the guests were safe and our team were in constant communication with them,” the company said at the time.

“The guests onboard exited the ride from the safe stop zones with the help of our team.”