Kingda Ka Shut Down, El Toro To Reopen At Six Flags Great Adventure

JACKSON, NJ — Roller coaster enthusiasts headed to Six Flags Great Adventure this weekend are expected to be able to ride El Toro again for the first time in nearly a year. But that reopening comes as another coaster in the park is shut down.

Kingda Ka, heralded as the tallest and fastest roller coaster in North America, has been shut down temporarily, according to Six Flags Great Adventure officials.

"Kingda Ka is closed for maintenance," said Staci Wheeler, a park spokeswoman. "The ride will reopen soon after its state inspection which is scheduled to happen following this weekend and the Juneteenth holiday on Monday."

Wheeler would not comment on information provided by the state Department of Community Affairs that said the ride is shut down following an incident that happened June 5.

Tammori Petty-Dixon, director of communications for the Department of Community Affairs, said the incident involved "a mechanical failure of a component of the launch system" during the launch of one of the trains.

"Due to this failure during launch, the train did not accelerate to the adequate speed to transition over the apex and returned back through the launch track and to the load/unload station for evacuation," Petty-Dixon said in an email to Patch Friday afternoon.

There were no injuries, she said.

Petty-Dixon said the ride remains closed and is "under an active investigation, including pending consultation with the ride manufacturer to identify and evaluate the specific component(s) involved in the failure, and to determine a cause of the failure."

Kingda Ka, which opened in 2005, sends riders up a U-shaped track that peaks at 456 feet high, going from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds on launch up a 90-degree angle.

El Toro, which was shut down for six months in 2021 and then shut down again in August 2022, is set to reopen Saturday, Wheeler said.

There will be an exclusive ride time on Saturday and Sunday, from 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. both days for season passholders and members, Wheeler said.

El Toro will open to the general public after that, at 1:30 p.m. each day, she said.

That roller coaster was shut down following an Aug. 25, 2022 ride incident that injured 14 people because of an issue with damaged track support columns. Those were repaired before the ride was permitted to reopen this year.

El Toro, which opened in 2006, is one of the most popular roller coasters at Six Flags Great Adventure and has been named among the top roller coasters in the country by roller coaster fans. It covers 4,400 feet of twists, tight turns and drops, including one of 176 feet, reaching a top speed of 70 miles per hour.

Trip Savvy named it the No. 1 wooden roller coaster in a 2020 article: "Smooth-as-silk and among the fastest wooden coasters in the world (at 70 mph), El Toro is a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps its greatest attribute is the freaky out-of-your-seat airtime it delivers."

In 2021 El Toro was red-tagged after what state officials said was “a partial derailment,” where the rear wheels of one car came out of their proper position on the tracks. El Toro reopened at the start of the 2022 season after a state-mandated engineering review and repair plan was submitted by the ride manufacturer, Intamin.