Six Flags is closing several attractions across the U.S. and Canada — including the Goliath roller coaster at Magic Mountain in Valencia — after a man fell to his death from a ride at one of its parks in Georgia.
Officials said the temporary closures were “out of an abundance of caution.”
On Monday afternoon, Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, 42, of Atlanta, was ejected from a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia and struck other riders as he fell, the Cobb County Police Department said in a statement.
Kariem landed beneath the roller coaster, where police officers found him just before 4 p.m., unconscious and not breathing.
The Police Department’s major crimes unit is investigating.
Park officials closed the Goliath roller coaster at the Georgia park and similar attractions at its other locations after the fatal incident. Six Flags did not confirm whether Kariem fell from the Goliath, but Georgia television news stations aired video of passengers being evacuated from the ride Monday afternoon.
One rider told Atlanta NBC affiliate 11Alive that Kariem’s fall was captured in rider souvenir photographs that are automatically taken as their train passes.
“He was in our pictures,” the unnamed person told the news station. “He fell and hit the car three different times.”
Kariem was an information technology manager at Wesley International Academy, a public K-8 charter school, and “a cherished” member of the staff “whose presence and impact will be deeply missed by our students, staff, and all those whose lives he touched,” Atlanta Public Schools said in a statement Tuesday.
Six Flags announced this week that, in addition to Goliath in Georgia, it had closed the following rides:
- Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia
- Raging Bull at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill.
- Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J.
- Leviathan and Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario
- Fury 325 and Thunder Striker at Carowinds in Charlotte, N.C.
- Orion and Diamondback at Kings Island in Kings Island, Ohio
The company did not elaborate on why these specific rides were chosen, but noted they were “similar.”
Magic Mountain’s Goliath roller coaster opened in 2000 and is described on the park’s website as a “metal monster” — reaching speeds of up to 85 mph while taking riders down a 255-foot plunge at a 61-degree angle, “one of the longest and fastest drops in the world.” The Georgia version, which this year marked its 20th anniversary, tops out at 70 mph and reaches 200 feet in height, according to its online ride profile.
The closures come less than a month after Magic Mountain announced the permanent closure of its acclaimed X2 ride, the first roller coaster in the world that spun riders 360 degrees in their seats. The attraction was retired in late September after multiple people sued the theme park operator, alleging they suffered brain injuries on the ride and that Six Flags had failed to adequately warn them of the risk.
X2 had been closed since July, following reports of back-to-back brain injuries.
In June 2022, Christopher Hawley had trouble walking immediately after riding the roller coaster, then lost consciousness. Doctors found severe brain bleeding. He died the next day, and a coroner’s report cited head trauma from a “park ride accident,” according to a 2023 lawsuit filed against Magic Mountain by his family, who settled for an undisclosed amount this summer.
“While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” Brian Oerding, Six Flags Magic Mountain president, said in a statement last month, adding that “ride safety is a cornerstone of our business.”
Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire, the state agency that regulates and inspects theme parks, said in a statement Tuesday that it is “actively investigating” the fatal incident.
Six Flags Over Georgia, located in the Atlanta suburb of Austell, is “a significant part” of the region’s tourism industry, “drawing visitors from across our county, our state, and the Southeast,” Lisa Cupid, chairwoman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement.
“We are all grappling with how something so devastating could happen at a place that has given generations of families such happy memories,” she wrote.
Martin Lewison, an associate professor at Farmingdale State College in New York who researches theme parks and has ridden more than 2,600 roller coasters around the world, said he has boarded the Goliath in Georgia many times. Its manufacturer, the Swiss company Bolliger & Mabillard, “is highly respected … and has a stellar safety record,” he said.
“These Bolliger & Mabillard hypercoasters are super popular, they’re all over the world, and they’re fun,” he said. “It’s a real tragedy to have this workhorse of the roller coaster thrill world be involved.”
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The manufacturer of the Goliath in Valencia was Giovanola — a now-defunct Swiss company.
Lewison, who noted he is a Six Flags shareholder, said that when the company’s theme parks close for several weeks in the winter, each ride is thoroughly inspected, with the safety restraints carefully evaluated and “every bolt and every metal plate” checked for fatigue.
“A lot of people in the theme park industry and the enthusiast community are scratching their heads because … a restraint failure is so unusual and unlikely,” he said of the Georgia tragedy.
Dennis Speigel, owner and founder of the Cincinnati-based consulting firm International Theme Park Services, said more more than 380 million people visit theme and amusement parks in North America annually, adding up to nearly 2 billion rides. In 2024, there were an estimated 118 serious injuries requiring hospital visits, he said.
Speigel said theme parks are statistically very safe “due to the self-policing, the state inspections, the insurance inspections and the third-party inspections that are done.”
He called Six Flags’ decision to shut down the rides in question “absolutely the proper approach” to ensure safety.
“This will not deter people from coming to the park,” he said. “It never has. They will come back as soon as that ride is put back into operation, and the lines will be longer than they have before. I’ve seen that over and over, for decades.”
In 2024, Six Flags Entertainment Corp. merged with Cedar Fair, the company that owns Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park. The combined company sold seven parks this year as it worked to pay down about $5 billion in debt.
Times staff writer Fedor Zarkhin contributed to this report.
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