What happened to the loop in the Son of Beast roller coaster?

I went to Kings Island this summer and was disappointed to find that the loop had been removed from the roller coaster. What happened, when and why?

What happened to the loop in the Son of Beast roller coaster?
People actually got hurt on the ride a while back when the ride still had the loop... Investigations were done and it was found that some structural timbers had actually broken...





Now, I guess that's expected on wooden coasters from time to time, but there were apparently enough broken on Son of Beast to cause some real problems... hence the people getting injured on the ride (don't know the extent of their injuries).





So, the ride was shut down for awhile and it was determined that the ORIGINAL ride trains were too heavy for the wooden structure. I guess they were "extra" heavy ride trains for going through the loop in the first place...





They brought in "lighter" ride trains, to keep from braking anymore wooden supports, but that meant getting rid of the "infamous" loop!!





I think it's pretty ridiculous that these problems weren't solved in the pre-production stage of the rides development!! But, I guess with the ride being the tallest and fastest woody, and only wood coaster with a loop (even though the loop was made of steel) they must've overlooked some things...???





Really a shame, although I was lucky enough to ride it a couple of summers ago when it still had the loop... The ride was so rough it was pretty hard to enjoy...





So, the original Beast is still my favorite coaster!!





Okay, I guess the problems took place on Sunday, July 9 of 2006... somewhere around two dozen people ( I'm guessing that means all the riders on one train) were sent to Cincinnati area hospitals to be treated for minor neck and chest injuries after their ride train stopped abruptly while riding Son of Beast!!





King's Island officials stated that there were some "busted timbers" on the ride...





I still don't understand how they didn't foresee these problems in the development stage???
Reply:www.rideaccidents.com has more info on this, but basically, there was an accident last summer which resulted in the ride getting closed down. After investigations, they decided to remove the loop this year. With that, they also had to install new coaster trains as well. I think the coaster reopened sometime mid summer this year.
Reply:they had to take out the loop early this season (or maybe before it opened for the season, i'm not sure) because they got new trains for it and teh trains wern't compatable with the looping track.



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