Six Flags Is Adding Seat Belts to Goliath. Which Coasters Are Affected

Six Flags will add seat belts to Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia and to “other coasters with a similar restraint,” CEO John Reilly said on Friday, Oct. 23, Atlanta News First reported. The Six Flags seat belts plan comes 11 days after a rider died on Goliath. Georgia officials have not announced a cause.

Goliath is one of nine Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) hypercoasters in the Six Flags chain. Six of them already pair a seat belt with the lap bar, and three, including Goliath, do not. All nine remained closed as of Oct. 23, Atlanta News First reported.

What happened on Goliath on Oct. 12

Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, 42, fell from Goliath on Monday, Oct. 12, Cobb County police said, Atlanta News First reported. Investigators said he was ejected from the ride, struck other riders and fell beneath the coaster. Four riders suffered injuries, and officials have not released their conditions, The National News Desk reported.

We first covered the case in our story on how US states inspect amusement rides.

What Six Flags announced on Friday

Reilly sent the message on Friday evening, Attractions Magazine reported. “We are reinforcing safety precautions at our parks and taking additional measures,” it said, according to Theme Park Tribune. The company has also brought in “independent engineers and ride inspection specialists” to review its safety practices.

Adding belts is a precaution, not a finding, and Attractions Magazine made the same point: it “does not establish that Goliath’s existing restraint system malfunctioned.”

The nine coasters, and the three without belts

All nine are tall steel coasters from the Swiss firm B&M, with a similar lap bar. Attractions Magazine listed when each one got its belts.

Theme Park Tribune and Attractions Magazine both name Nitro and Raging Bull as the other two rides without belts. Six Flags has not published its own list or an installation date.

The pattern is telling. All six belted rides sit at former Cedar Fair parks, which joined Six Flags in a merger completed on July 1, 2024. The three without belts are legacy Six Flags rides.

Two other coasters share the Goliath name. Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Goliath in California comes from a different maker, Giovanola. It closed briefly as a precaution and has reopened, Attractions Magazine reported. La Ronde in Montreal is keeping its own B&M Goliath shut during a review with the manufacturer.

What a seat belt adds to a lap bar

Riders on these trains sit under a “clamshell” lap bar with a single post between the legs, NBC Chicago reported. A belt adds a second, independent restraint. If one fails to hold, the other remains in place.

Federal safety staff recommended that kind of backup two decades ago. A 2005 Consumer Product Safety Commission staff review studied riders thrown from mobile rides. It called “redundant or secondary restraints” the most effective fix for restraints that open mid-ride. Most such incidents would likely have caused no injury “if a secondary restraint, such as a seatbelt, had been in use,” the staff wrote.

That review covered traveling fair rides, not park coasters, and it did not test B&M’s design. It also found that a determined rider can defeat a second restraint. Even then, the staff said, it gives the operator extra time to notice and stop the ride.

What Georgia’s investigation still has to answer

Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, John King, leads the state inquiry with Cobb County police. “This is the most serious investigation that we’ve conducted in quite a long time,” King said, according to Atlanta News First. The state, the park and the manufacturer are each running separate investigations, said Cobb County Commission Chair Lisa Cupid.

State records show Goliath passed its annual inspection on March 16, 2026, with “no violations, deficiencies, citations, or red tags,” FOX 5 Atlanta reported. King said state investigators and engineers are reviewing evidence, equipment and documentation. His office has not yet released the full inspection file.

The central question is how a rider came out of his seat mid-ride. Investigators have not said, and none of the reports we read gives a date for findings.

The inquiry also has a political backdrop. King is on the ballot in the Nov. 3 midterms, facing Democrat Keisha Waites, who said she would have made sure every ride was thoroughly inspected before the park reopened, Atlanta News First reported.

Are the rides open?

Six Flags Over Georgia was due to reopen for Fright Fest on Friday, Oct. 16, with Goliath kept shut, The National News Desk reported. Cupid said the park and the commissioner’s office will decide when it runs again. In Illinois, state inspectors must check Raging Bull again before it reopens, the Illinois Department of Labor said in a statement, NBC Chicago reported.

Six Flags parks will stay open through Halloween weekend with more than 220 coasters running, Attractions Magazine reported. Nobody has set a reopening date for the nine closed coasters. The next public step is the Georgia commissioner’s report on how Kariem came out of his seat.