The stoppage of the wheel is a blow to Singapore's tourism industry, which is slowing amid the global economic recession, reported Bloomberg news. -- ST PHOTO
PROVING that where there's a wheel there's a way, the management of the grounded Singapore Flyer on Friday announced new back-up plans in order to get it going by Chinese New Year.
The world's giant observation wheel has been out of action since the six-hour stoppage on Dec 23. This was due to an electrical fire in the control room knocking out its operations system.
While police investigations have completed, the wheel will not regain its operating license after it has been certified safe and backup measures are in place.
The Flyer's chairman Florian Bollen on Friday announced that a secondary operating system, with its own power supply, would be constructed in a separate location from the main system.
This would ensure the secondary system would be unaffected in case of a fire breaking out in the primary control room.
Switching to this system would take 'minutes', according to Mr Bollen, such that passengers may not even notice a delay.
When all else fails, a third winch system would be activated.
The wheel's brakes, which are powered separately, would first be released. As the wheel, in most cases, is not balanced, gravity will then move the wheel to unload the passengers, said Mr Bollen.
If the wheel happens to be perfectly balanced, two winches, which will be installed on each side of the base of the wheel, will move the wheel into an unbalanced state.
Mr Bollen could not say how much the new back-up systems would cost.
