Nobody checked his lap bar.

In the fervor of press immediately after the incident, this assertion was not challenged in any way. The fact of it was often the headline. Eye witnesses reported that operators didn’t do it. Six Flags never attempted to contest otherwise. The official report to come out would state it explicitly.

Nobody checked his lap bar.

Not only did the report fault operators for not restraining him, but also recommended that the restraint system be altered or replaced entirely.

Investigators from the state Department of Public Safety and Agawam police last night were probing the cause of the accident on the thrill ride, which can reach speeds of 80 miles per hour. Morbarsky flew from the ride sideways as it hit a curve, and could not have fallen far, Draghetti said. As far as investigators could determine, Morbarsky had come to visit the park alone, Draghetti said. “You can touch the rail standing on the ground,” Draghetti said. Morbarsky “started spinning like a Frisbee and hit the rail, bam, and then fell down on the ground,” Anthony Arroyo told WFSB-TV of Hartford, Conn. People started screaming, eyewitness Sara Syez told WHDH-TV in Boston. “All of a sudden people started screaming, `Stop the ride, stop the ride, someone has fallen off,’ “ she said. “They finally stopped the ride, and it was extreme panic, and we looked, and all the people in the cars were crying . . . and we looked over to the side, and there was a gentleman laying by the fence.”

Three Intamin mega coasters, each called Superman: Ride of Steel opened in 1999 and 2000. The first, at Six Flags Darien Lake, was the first Intamin mega coaster, and a clone of it was slated to open at Six Flags America the same year before being pushed back due to squabbling with the local government.

This was not the first time this had happened. It wouldnt be the last.

All three Rides of Steel have similar endings: three ejector bunny hops. On the twins in Buffalo and Upper Marlboro, these lead straight into the station. On big brother in New England, the train navigates one final hard 90-degree turn to the right before slamming into the brake run. They are the most intense moments of airtime on the rides, with trim brakes preventing the trains from taking them at too much speed.

These bunny hills have been the site of at least three known accidents and two deaths.

In 1999, Michael Dwailbee was ejected from Darien Lake’s Ride of Steel, and from the same hills, though he survived. His potbelly prevented the restraints from settling into and securing his lap. The train never should have been dispatched with him inside.

In 2011, a rider on the same ride was ejected from the bunny hills. Both of his legs had been amputated, and the restraints were unable to properly secure him in any case. He died. The train never should have been dispatched with him inside.

Intamin designs their restraints for an average weight of about 175 lbs. By the time Mordarsky was thrown from the Ride of Steel in Agawam Intamin was already being accused of unsafe restraint design.

“Our rides are safe when people are responsible and follow the instructions,” Intamin President Sandor Kernacs said, adding that millions of people ride his and similar attractions each year without injury. In each accident, he said, the rider or operators should have been more responsible. However, officials for the parks say they were following instructions from Intamin. In light of the most recent death, that of a 40-year-old Duarte woman on Sept. 21 at Knott’s Berry Farm, lawyers and safety advocates believe both manufacturers and amusement parks need to take a closer look at establishing weight limits for their rides or warning heavy patrons that they might be at risk. “When they put hundreds of thousands of people through the rides in a year, they have to anticipate that almost anything that can take place will take place. And they have to plan for it,” said David A. Dodge, a Maine-based independent safety consultant and former amusement-ride accident investigator. “If we are relying on the mental or physical capability of a rider to retain [him- or herself] in the ride, then we’re putting the burden on the wrong person.” Rides should be designed to withstand “all foreseeable circumstances — to include unconsciousness, wiggling and obesity,” Dodge said. The three Intamin accidents occurred on different types of rides at different amusement parks and involved different restraints. But in each case, the rider fell out, because either he or she wasn’t adequately restrained or the restraints didn’t work, according to government investigation reports or lawyers for the victims.

The case for Mr. Dwailbee, as described here, was the same case at it was for Mr. Mordarsky.

An engineer who acted as a consultant to lawyers in a suit in New York State involving a 1999 accident on another Superman Ride of Steel coaster said that if a rider has a wide girth and short legs, the bar can lock in above the belly. When the coaster bucks and plunges over a steep hump, the force can suck the rider above the restraint and fling him out of the car, said John Serth Jr., the engineering consultant in the case of Michael Dwaileebe, who won a $4 million jury award after he was injured in a similar accident at the Six Flags near Buffalo in 1999. “It’s the potbelly that does it,” Serth said. At 5-feet-2, Mordarsky weighed about 230 pounds and had a potbelly.

Intamin developed the mega coaster to break records. Intamin mega coasters are among the tallest in the world, and the Rides of Steel were no exception. Yet the tallest height a person fell from was ten feet. You could reach up and grab the section of track Mr. Mordarsky was thrown from.

But it doesn’t matter the height. It matters the speed. Mordarsky was totally unrestrained, only a stranger behind him struggling to pull him to safety.