Disneyland ride passengers trapped in mid-air as ride stalls for third time in 10 days

Three dozen passengers were left hanging in mid-air on Hong Kong Disneyland’s popular Toy Soldier Parachute Drop attraction yesterday, sparking safety fears as the ride stalled for a third time this month.

The jump-style ride – which simulates a scene from the animation Toy Story in which toy soldiers parachute from the sky – came to an abrupt halt after an automatic safety mechanism in its computer system was activated.

But a Disneyland spokeswoman said there were “no safety problems” and that the ride’s reliability rate was “still quite high”.

“It’s like a fire alarm. The mechanism comes on when it senses a problem and the ride stops automatically. There were no safety problems,” the spokeswoman said.

The two incidents on the same ride earlier this month were also due to similar problems, the spokeswoman confirmed.

The 36 passengers were left hanging at the top of the ride for more than 10 minutes at about 1.30pm. The park said the glitch was fixed within an hour and the ride was reopened.