Safety sensors on Florida free fall ride were manually adjusted in "unsafe" way before fatal accident, report finds

The 14-year-old who died after falling from a thrill ride in Florida last month was in a seat that had previously been manually adjusted in a way that made the ride "unsafe," a report released this week by forensic investigators found. Quest Engineering and Failure Analysis' report found that the adjustment to the seat that Tyre Sampson fell from prevented safety sensors from shutting the ride down, even though the space between the seat and harness harness was too wide.

"This report confirmed our department's findings that an operator of the Orlando drop tower made manual adjustments to the ride, resulting in it being unsafe," Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried said at a press conference Monday.

Neither Fried nor the report specified when the sensors were changed or who specifically made the adjustment.