Countywide : Fair’s Ejector Seat Bounces Back After Repairs, State Inspection

The Ejector Seat bungee ride reopened at the Orange County Fair on Wednesday after investigators found the cause of a malfunction Sunday that left a Santa Ana man dangling 125 feet in the air for an hour.

One of the first riders--and the oldest rider so far this year--was 75-year-old Jim Sampson of Fountain Valley.

“Let ‘er rip!” Sampson said as he hopped on the Ejector Seat.

“I had heard about it,” Sampson said of Sunday’s incident. “I really didn’t think about it.

“Nobody died, did they?” he chuckled.

The first rider Wednesday, Jeff MacDonald, 47, of San Juan Capistrano, said he had “no qualms about this at all. . . . if I get stuck, I’m just going to enjoy the view.”

MacDonald wasn’t in the air long enough to enjoy the view. Strapped into a metal holder attached to bungee cords, he was catapulted straight into the air at speeds reaching 65 m.p.h. and was lowered after about a minute.

MacDonald’s wife, Lynne, who watched him through a viewfinder, said, “I wasn’t worried at all. He loves adventure.”

State inspectors Wednesday blamed the problem on a cable that became disconnected from a groove in a metal bar used to lower the seat.

“It wasn’t unsafe, except you could get stuck in the thing,” said Kenn Hoekstra, senior safety engineer with the Department of Industrial Relations in Sacramento.

Ride operators added a metal bracket to prevent the cable from slipping off again and were given a permit to resume operations.

Before the fair opened Wednesday, the Ejector Seat underwent a series of test runs without passengers, followed by about five runs with workers, according to inspectors.

Travis Welch, operator and part-owner of the ride, said it was closed two days not for the inspection but for the paperwork.

“The ride is the easy part,” Welch said. “It’s the layers of bureaucracy that’s 10 times harder. I’m glad everything is working well. It has always been safe.”