Adventureland logged 65 safety violations since 2023, records show

Adventureland’s new Wave Twister ride stranded 16 riders, most of them children, for more than three hours on June 19, and state records now show the Farmingdale amusement park has logged 65 safety violations since 2023. The stalled ride and the inspection history have put fresh attention on how the Route 110 park is monitored in peak summer season.

The record review shows the violations were not left hanging over the park unresolved. Newsday’s review of state inspection files found that every violation was corrected and that each ride passed a later inspection, a crucial detail for a park that draws families from across Suffolk County and the rest of Long Island. Even so, the cited problems included broken or missing straps, lap bars that needed replacement and inoperable locking sensors, the kinds of defects that go directly to rider protection.

The pattern also points to a worsening trend. Safety violations at Adventureland rose from 10 in 2023 to 24 in 2025, with 19 already recorded in 2026, according to the records Newsday reviewed. That means the park’s most recent public scrutiny is not just about one malfunction on one ride, but about a run of repeated findings that has intensified over time.

New York State’s Department of Labor inspects amusement rides at stationary parks at least once a year, and no ride can operate without a department permit. The agency says only rides deemed safe are allowed to run, which makes the inspection record central to how parents decide whether to buy tickets, line up for a ride and trust the machinery beneath them.

Local reports said firefighters and Suffolk County police had to lower riders one at a time during the Wave Twister rescue, underscoring how serious the incident became once the ride stalled more than once and left people suspended about 25 feet in the air. Adventureland, which says it has been Long Island’s amusement park since 1962, remains one of the region’s best-known seasonal attractions, with more than 30 rides and a steady summer crowd in Farmingdale on Broad Hollow Road.

The scrutiny comes with a wider warning attached. In Iowa, an Adventureland ride called Raging River was later tied to 17 safety violations in connection with the 2021 death of 11-year-old Michael Jaramillo, a separate case that still shapes how the Adventureland name is viewed when ride safety comes back into focus.