On the 11th of May, 1984, a fire began inside the Haunted Castle attraction
at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey. The flames spread quickl,y feeding off
flammable building materials and decorations. There were around 30 guests inside the
attraction when the flames took hold... almost a third of whom would not make it out alive.
The Haunted Castle was a walk-through attraction packed with spooky theming. Guests
would move along a series of narrow and dimly-lit corridors enjoying frequent scares along the way.
These were provided by special effects including strobes and recorded sounds,
as well as live actors dressed in costume who would jump out from hidden alcoves.
While it was themed to resemble a crooked castle,
the attraction was actually built from 16 interconnected truck trailers.
These were arranged in a symmetrical configuration with eight on each side.
Each set of eight trailers contained a more-or-less identical maze of corridors.
When the park was quiet only one side would be opened,
but both sides could be run at once when the park was busy. There was also a central
trailer which served as a control room and dressing room for the live actors.
On the evening of the 11th of May, 1984, just one side of the attraction was opened.
Guests were filtering through at a steady rate when, just before 6:30pm, a small fire began.
This quickly spread. The trailers were made from aluminium, but were packed with flammable
materials including plywood dividing walls, cloth and paper coverings on most surfaces,
wood and foam props, and foam crash pads on some walls.
Around 30 people were inside when the fire began. The rapid spread of flames and smoke,
combined with the deliberately confusing layout of the Haunted Castle, made it difficult for
guests to evacuate. One guest who did manage to escape noted that he'd stumbled, tripped,
and bounced off walls as he fled, and that his decision to leave had been delayed because,
upon first seeing flames and smoke, he mistook them for just another special effect.
Fire and rescue services were called promptly, and arrived on scene within minutes...
but the fire was so fierce that the affected side of the attraction was all but destroyed
by the time they managed to bring it under control. It was, for a brief time,
thought that all patrons had been successfully evacuated, but this notion was quashed when
eight bodies were discovered in the wreckage - most of them in the same narrow corridor.
Some of them were so severely burned that they were initially mistaken for burned mannequins
from the Haunted Castle's theming. The eight victims were all from the same group of friends.
Among the dead were 18-year-old Nicola Caiazza, 17-year-old Joseph Beyroutey,
15-year-old Tina Genovese, 18-year-old Eric Rodriguez, 17-year-old Samuel Valentin
17-year-old Lenny Ruiz 17-year-old Jose Carrion and 17-year-old Christopher Harrison.
The park was briefly closed while an investigation took place. The initial cause of the fire was soon
identified: a 13-year-old survivor named Joey Irica testified that he had seen another teenage
boy using the flame from a cigarette lighter to find his way through a darkened part of the maze.
While doing so, Irica testified, the older boy had accidentally brought the flame too close
to a ripped piece of foam dangling from a foam-clad wall, causing it to ignite.
The boy with the lighter was never identified. While using an open flame in such a confined space
is a foolish course of action, investigators noted that he was not to blame for the disaster. The
fault was instead attributed to park management and to a range of state-level inspection agencies.
These parties, it was alleged, had allowed the Haunted Castle to operate without proper safety
systems, and in an increasingly dangerous condition, year on year. For example,
no sprinkler system and no working smoke alarms were installed inside the attraction.
Both had been recommended by fire safety consultants, but weren't actually mandatory,
since the Haunted Castle was considered to be a temporary structure and building codes
at the time did not require smoke alarms or sprinkler systems inside temporary structures.
Of course the Haunted Castle had been in place for almost five years
at the time of the disaster, thus somewhat stretching the definition of "temporary".
Furthermore it was revealed that many of the emergency exit lights and other fixtures
and fittings within the maze had been in poor condition at the time of the disaster. Employees
noted that bulbs were missing or broken in many emergency lights, and that the foam padding on
the wall where the fire had begun was ripped and exposed when it should have been neatly sealed.
Shift managers also reported that guests had been witnessed using matches and lighters to illuminate
their way on several occasions in the past, but that nothing had been done to address this.
When staff working on the Haunted Castle had brought up these issues with senior management
they had been ignored, even when they staged a walkout in protest against the poor upkeep
of the attraction in 1983. In that same year an anonymous employee had filled in a
form for reporting safety violations with the words, "Forget it. Too numerous to mention."
Despite this record of poor maintenance and missing safety measures both the park
and its parent company were cleared of any wrongdoing. When the matter came to court,
after much deliberation, jurors laid the blame at the feet of Jackson Township officials,
who repeatedly allowed the Castle to "slip through cracks" in the fire code.
The park had followed the regulations it was required to follow by law...
but the law had simply not required enough. Eight civil suits were brought against the park,
seven of which were settled out of court for $2.5 million apiece. The remaining suit went to trial,
and the family involved were ultimately awarded a significantly lesser sum.
Multiple updates were made to New Jersey fire safety codes in the wake of the disaster,
particularly with regard to any structure like the Haunted Castle
which was intended to confuse or disorientate visitors.
New regulations required that all such structures be fitted with suitable fire detection systems,
and that when a fire alarm was triggered lights should automatically come on and confusing sound
effects and music should automatically be muted. Other states were quick to adopt New Jersey's
rules, leading to a revolution in scare attraction safety across America. Despite this several
attractions in New Jersey suffered as a result of the disaster, and many went out of business. Six
Glags Great Adventure itself very nearly folded in 1987, in part due to negative coverage concerning
the fire. It was ultimately able to recover and move forward, and still operates today.
The building - or more accurately, the set of trailers - which housed the Haunted
Castle has long since been removed. It has been replaced by a new ride: the Cyborg Cyber Spin.
There is no memorial, nor any lasting sign of the attraction which stood there in 1984,
but it is safe to say that the Haunted Castle will not be forgotten.
It remains a powerful specter for the families of those lost in the fire, and a terrible warning
to legislators and fire safety officials on the dangers of letting things slip through the cracks.