PETALING JAYA: The death of an eight-year-old Malaysian girl at a theme park in Adelaide, Australia in 2014, has been found to be due to a serious design fault and day-to-day failings by the operator of the Royal Adelaide Show, Associated Press reported.

On Thursday, an industrial court in South Australia, convicted the company that operated the ride, C, J & Sons Amusements, and one its directors, Jenny-Lee Sullivan over breaches to safety laws.

On Sept 12, 2014, Adelene Leong was at the theme park with her family during their holiday Down Under.

Taking the Airmaxx 360 ride as her mother looked on, Adelene’s joy at experiencing the thrilling ride soon turned to tragedy when she was flung, as witnesses at the time had put it, “like a doll” from the spinning ride.

According to AP, after Adelene was flung from the ride, the harness remained in place and no expert evidence was presented to the court to explain exactly how she came to be thrown out.

The judge said that investigations into the accident revealed that “nobody had spotted the fundamental design flaw of gaps at the sides and through the front of the safety harness used to keep patrons secure”.

“The magistrate found the defendants had erred in the day-to-day operation of the Airmaxx 360, including a failure to keep a proper logbook, the use of mobile phones by operators – leaving them open to distraction – and the failure to have a dedicated spotter watching over people on the ride,” he said, according to the report.

The judge added that the operators also had no proper systems in place to check the height of those seeking to go on the ride.

However, in making the ruling against the company and its director, the judge said that with debts of more than A$1 million (RM3.35 million), he believed that there was no way they could pay fines, so he declined to make orders forcing them to do so.

The companies would likely have been fined A$94,500 and Sullivan A$63,000, with a maximum compensation of A$20,000 to the girl’s family, if the judge had decided to impose such a sentence, AP reported.

According to investigations, small-sized patrons of the same Airmaxx 360 ride at amusement parks in Melbourne and Sydney had previously suffered chest and neck and head injuries.

The judge ruled that the defendants had not behaved in a reckless or intentional manner and had a high regard for safety but that their lack of due diligence could not be excused, AP reported.

The Airmaxx 360 ride features a rotating section with multiple arms that would spin and move up and down.