A teenager who fell 400 feet to his death on a theme park ride "had his seat misadjusted", a new report has revealed.
Tyre Sampson, 14, died on March 24 while riding the Orlando Free Fall thrill ride, which is said to be the world's largest free-standing drop tower.
Yesterday, Nikki Fried, the Florida Agriculture Commissioner, discussed the report that found an operator of the ride had made manual adjustments to a sensor, which resulted in it being unsafe.
Ms Fried said during a news conference: "This report confirmed that manual adjustments had been made to the sensor [of] the seat in question that allowed the harness-to-restraint opening to be almost double that of the normal restraint opening range."
The report added that the improper adjustments allowed the safety lights in the teenager's seat to light up.
This in turn enabled the ride to operate, despite Tyre's not being properly secured in his seat.
While the investigation is still ongoing, Ms Fried said that other contributing factors may have played a role in the tragedy.
The ride will remain closed indefinitely.
State Representative Geraldine Thompson stated that rides at the park go through a routine inspection and that an inspection should have followed after the adjustments were made to the ride.
The current investigation will try and determine if those inspections were made.
Ms Thompson told reporters she is working on a "Tyre Sampson bill" to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
Tyre, originally from Missouri, was visiting Orlando with a friend's family at the time of his death.
His dad Yarnell Sampson, has told how it felt like he was hit “hard in the stomach” when he learned his son had died.
“It felt like somebody hit me so hard in my stomach. I just lost, I lost, lost wind,” Mr Sampson reportedly said.
“And the pain behind it could never be taken away — and sorry’s not gonna take it back and no monies, no nothing in the world to replace the young man.
"And it’s just sad, a young man’s bright future was taken away from him over a ride, an amusement park.”
He told WESH 2 : “I want to know what happened to my son. I want to know why my son is in a white bag, having to get shipped back home.
"He walked there. Why he can’t walk back? I want answers from everybody. Who all was involved in that?
“I wish I was there to tell him I love him, that I’m sorry. For him to lose his life. So young, and I wish it was me."
It is the second accident at the park in two years.
In 2020, a park employee died while working on the StarFlyer ride.
