Thirteen people spent part of their Sunday suspended high in the air on a roller coaster on Queensland's Gold Coast in Australia.
"An issue with a wheel" on the Green Lantern roller coaster caused two of the ride's cars to get stuck, according to officials at Warner Brothers Movie World. Seven people in one car were rescued quickly while six people in another car spent three and a half hours suspended about 50 meters above the ground as crews worked to free them.
"It was pretty frightening to watch," said Amanda Bude, who witnessed the rescue. "I could see where the wheel had fallen off."
"They were going really, really fast," one witness told ABC. "They seemed like they had been going faster than usual."
The theme park is launching a "thorough" internal investigation into the incident, Movie World general manager Greg Young said. The Green Lantern roller coaster will remain closed until park crews figure out what caused the two cars to get stuck.
"What's important is we train with Queensland Fire and Rescue on these kinds of evacuations on a regular basis," Young said. "Thankfully they're not a common occurrence but when they do happen, we like to be sure that we're very well drilled in how to handle them."