
This is the horrifying moment The Smiler crashed at Alton Towers leaving 16 injured including two young women who later had legs amputated in the worst British rollercoaster crash for years.

The grainy CCTV clip shows the ride smashing into an empty carriage with the same force as a 90mph car crash.

The footage published for the first time today shows the Smiler stop at the top of a loop before bungling Alton Towers engineers overrode a system warning and sent it headlong into another truck on June 2 last year.

The carriages collided so hard the two became meshed together, crushing the limbs of people in the front row and sending the ride swinging back-and-forth like a pendulum.

Incredibly it emerged that today staff running ride at Alton Towers had not read the ride's operating manual and then took 17 minutes to dial 999.

Victims who lost limbs, broke bones and suffered internal injuries in the disaster relieved their ordeal as they faced the theme park's bosses at Stafford Crown Court today.

The men and women, some of whom could have been killed, faced the theme park's bosses who were told they could face a £10million fine - plus compensation to its victims - for the disaster on June 2, 2015.

Collision course: Swinging into the picture moments before impact on the left, the Smiler packed with people circled in blue on the right plummets towards the empty carriage circled in red

Carnage: The two trucks collide like a 90mph car crash and they became meshed together, crushing the people in the front row - two of whom later had legs amputated

Blunder: This footage seconds before the crash shows how the ride was stopped but then set off again when an engineer ignored a warning on the ride's computer system

Scale model: The Health and Safety Executive were able to plot the speed and power of the impact in Britain's worst rollercoaster crash for years

Leah Washington, 18, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Vicky Balch, 20, from Leyland, Lancashire, were both forced to undergo leg amputations as a result of the horror crash.

At least 16 were injured and five people were seriously hurt when it smashed into a broken down carriage after a series of blunders.

Staff - under pressure to keep the ride in almost constant use and offered bonuses to keep it running - had not even read the manual for the £18million rollercoaster.

Engineers then overrode a fault which had been detected by the computer system and sent the ride crashing into an empty carriage with the force of a '90mph car crash'.

The court also heard engineers should have seen the empty carriage which was visible on CCTV cameras covering the track.

Prosecutors revealed the weather should have shut down the ride and engineers were ill-equipped to deal with the aftermath.

The theme park's operator Merlin has been warned to expect a 'very large fine' for health and safety breaches.

The court heard:

Court shown horrifying moment The Smiler crashed in worst rollercoaster disaster for years

Impact of packed ride smashing into an empty carriage equivalent to 'a family car of 1.5 tons having collided at about 90mph'

Victims were 'suspended (in mid air) for several hours'and suffered 'very significant blood loss' leading to loss of limbs

There were 'near gale' wind speeds of 46mph on day of crash - but Smiler should not run at more than 34mph. Other rides at Alton Towers were shut down.

None of the rollercoaster's four key engineers 'had the full picture or understanding of conditions on the ride' - and may not have all read the instruction manual

One had then overridden a computer system 'block-stop' which they believed had halted the ride in error, sending a full 16-seater rollercoaster car around the track and into the empty carriage.

Judge says disaster aggravated by difficulties emergency services had getting to victims left in mangled ride for almost four hours

No one from Alton Towers has resigned as a result of The Smiler disaster, the court heard.

Nicholas Varney, 53, chief executive of Merlin Entertainments, and Alton Towers divisional director Ian Crabbe attended court.

The court heard Varney, a father-of-four, took home a £733,000 pay packet in the same year as the Smiler crash.

Speaking on their behalf, Simon Antrobus, defending, said: 'They wish me to deliver an apology to the court and to those injured and affected by this ride.'

Judge Michael Chambers QC, the Recorder of Stafford, asked: 'Has anyone resigned as a result of the incident?' Mr Antrobus turned to confer with Mr Varney before replying: 'No.'

Arriving at court: Leah Washington, 18, left with boyfriend Joe Pugh, who broke his legs, and Vicky Balch, 20, right with her mother, were both forced to undergo leg amputations when Smiler crashed, and were at Stafford Crown Court today

Dreadful: Vickie Balch (pictured) was among 16 people injured in June last year - Merlin, which runs Alton Towers, are being sentenced for health and safety breaches

Upsetting: The moments after Smiler crashed last year - leaving the injured dangling in mid air. Leah Washington and Joe Pugh, who were in the front row, are circled

Victims, many with visible scars, were at Stafford Crown Court for the two-day sentencing hearing and heard how a series of blunders led to the crash.

Leah Washington, 18, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Vicky Balch, 20, from Leyland, Lancashire, were both forced to undergo leg amputations as a result of the horror crash.

Joe Pugh, 18, also from Barnsley and Daniel Thorpe, 28, from Buxton, Derbyshire, also suffered serious leg injuries, along with 49-year-old Chandaben Chauhan.

The trapped ridegoers then had to wait more than four hours to be freed from the crumpled carriage while rescue workers battled to reach them as they sat 25ft up in the air at an angle of about 45 degrees, pinned in by the mangled metal.

Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd, which owns and operates the Alton Towers theme park, previously admitted a breach of health and safety rules over the incident.

It faces a multi-million pound fine and potentially millions more in compensation claims from the victims following a Health and Safety Executive prosecution.

But the company has been criticised for putting profits over people and keeping the ride open even in the face of the appalling injuries sustained on it.

Chandaben Chauhan (right) suffered internal injuries after being on a girls day out with her two daughters, one of whom accompanied her to court today

Entourage: The large legal team representing Alton Towers' owners Merlin file into Stafford Crown Court this morning

Opening the case, barrister Bernard Thorogood said the kinetic energy involved in the crash on June 2 2015 was equivalent to 'a family car of 1.5 tons having collided at about 90mph'.

Evidence: Vicky Balch and other victims lost significant amounts of blood - and she had to have her right leg amputated

He said a test carriage had been sent around the 14-loop ride, but had failed - known as 'valley-ing' - in the bottom-most part of the Cobra Roll area of the ride, unseen by ride staff.

The engineers had re-set the ride and overridden a computer system 'block-stop' which they believed had halted the ride in error, sending a full 16-seater rollercoaster car around the track and into the empty carriage.

Mr Thorogood added: 'The subsequent collision was plain to see to some in the train, and I refer to those in the front row's statements, where they speak of their disbelief and horror as they saw ahead up the track the train into which there were going to dive.'

The barrister, speaking for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which brought the prosecution, said: 'Engineers who came to remedy the situation, regarding the indicated block-stop, thought it was a false one reflecting a recently corrected issue and did not see the stalled train, and proceeded to re-set and re-start the ride, overriding the computer-generated block-stop.'

However, he added that although there had been 'a number of human errors', the 'fault here is with the employers', and not individuals.

Mr Thorogood said engineers, responding to a fault, were 'without guidance from above', and had not been given a system to follow to safely deal with the problem on the track.

He added: 'The fault is with the defendant for not devising a scheme for not guiding the work of the engineers.'

The Recorder of Stafford, Judge Michael Chambers QC, is set to hear evidence of the HSE's investigation into the crash, and mitigation from Merlin, before passing sentence.

At the beginning of Monday's hearing, Judge Chambers said: 'One of the features is not just the impact on those injured, but on those close to them.'

He added that he had read all the victim impact statements.

He said the wounds suffered, both physical and psychological, had 'changed the lives of the some of those injured, in the most dramatic way'.

In its investigation, the safety watchdog found that a 'near-gale' may have been to blame for the empty carriage failing to clear the Cobra Loop in the first place, following an early problem with one of the ride's lifts.

Mr Thorogood said: 'One first empty train was sent to establish the lift was operating normally but, unknown to those present, this train failed to clear the loop - with which this case is unfortunately and sadly concerned.

'The problem was that the head-wind which that train could not overcome.'

Aftermath: These are the damaged Smiler carriages, which show how the ride buckled with the force of the collision

Shocking past: The major crash on the Smiler in June 2015 (pictured) in which five people were seriously injured

Rescue: The victims were stuck for up to four hours, some were left unconscious by the crash and lost significant amounts of blood

The Smiler ride itself, it was concluded, was 'well-designed' as were the computer and 'sophisticated' control systems, while the operator of the ride had followed safe working practices.

It concluded that the defendant, Merlin, fell 'far short' when it came to governing the inevitable need for engineers from the park's technical service's department to fix faults on the ride.

However, he added that there was 'absolutely no evidence of a task analysis-based approach for engineering work, in particular in dealing with ride faults'.

Mr Thorogood, summing up that point, said 'engineers revealed a range of understandings to important aspects, which with a single system (of working) there would not be'.

Giving an example of the idiosyncratic approach, Mr Thorogood said one engineer who worked on the Smiler that day told investigators after the crash that he had 'assumed' the rollercoaster had been fitted with a type of safety trip-switch present on at least one other park ride, when in fact it had not.

The court was told the victims of the Smiler crash were held at a 'very difficult angle' as the two trains on the ride 'meshed together'.

Mr Thorogood said some victims described the angle as 45 degrees, but accepted this was disputed.

He said: 'Passengers were held for some time at that very difficult angle.'

The prosecution went on to say that none of the four engineers involved in working on the Smiler 'had the full picture or understanding of conditions on the ride'.

'There was no single member of technical service staff in control,' Mr Thorogood said.

He added that there were 'various states of knowledge' of the fault alarm systems on the ride.

He said: 'The staff had come to distrust at that stage the fault signal on occasions and hence they thought that the one that was showing was an error.

'There was nobody, no individual who had to sign off and take responsibility for that event.

'A number of errors were made. The defendant is ultimately responsible for these errors though they were made by individuals.'

The Smiler reopened in March this year with 'improved safety measures' but student Miss Balch said she hoped the ride would 'be destroyed'.

A court hearing in April this year was told Merlin had conducted an internal investigation following the incident, which established that a worker manually 'overrode' the ride's governing computer system.

Indicating a guilty plea to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act, Merlin's barrister told the previous hearing that the company accepted additional measures could have been taken to guard against safety risks.