Monorail Involved in Safety Accident Operated Illegally After Only Its Name Was Changed

1. Overview

In November 2023, a monorail at Jisan Amusement Park on Mudeungsan Mountain in Gwangju stopped in midair, leaving passengers stranded for more than two hours. It later emerged that the operator had continued service by attaching another train’s number plate to the train that had been ordered out of service. In 2026, the operator was fined.

Jisan Amusement Park is a long-established amusement park in Gwangju, located on the slopes of Mudeungsan and equipped with a monorail and chairlift. Even before this incident, chairlift passengers had fallen or been stranded in midair almost every year, and children had even been allowed to ride attractions that had not been authorized. As a result, when news emerged of the monorail accident and the “number-plate switch,” many people saw it not as a one-off accident but as a sign of longstanding management failures.

2. The Monorail and Jisan Amusement Park

The Jisan Amusement Park monorail began operating in September 1980. Two cars run every 30 minutes along 714 meters of track connecting the station and the Mudeungsan octagonal pavilion. The track passes over a mountain slope at elevations ranging from at least 4 meters to as much as 20 meters above ground. The service closed in 2005 and reopened in 2016.

The chairlift at the same amusement park was known for frequent accidents. After falls in 2008 and 2009, two passengers were injured in 2010, and three managers were booked on suspicion of negligence. In 2012, a chairlift caught on a cable, leaving 19 passengers stranded in midair for two hours. In March 2014, a woman in her 30s fell, while around 30 people were stranded for about 40 minutes. In December 2015, a descending chairlift suddenly jolted and picked up speed, then its safety bar lifted, causing a middle-aged couple, aged 54 and 48, to fall. The chairlift remained out of service for more than four months. After improvements including the installation of footrests integrated with the safety bars, it resumed operations in April 2016.

3. Unauthorized Amusement Rides (March 2023)

The company had already faced trouble once, eight months before the monorail accident. The company, which had operated the park’s chairlift and monorail since 2006, brought in four new rides—a Viking ship ride, bumper cars, a carousel, and an Energy Storm—under the banner of revitalizing the business. However, it emerged that the rides had carried customers at least 12 times between June and October 2022, before the park had received authorization to operate them. The activity came to light through social media posts by visitors who had ridden the attractions, and in March 2023, Gwangju’s Dong District reported the company’s representative to police on suspicion of violating the Tourism Promotion Act. The company reportedly explained that there had been no safety issues and that the rides had been test runs.

4. Monorail Stops in Midair (November 2023)

At around 4:15 p.m. on November 19, 2023, Monorail Car No. 1, carrying passengers up an incline, suddenly stopped. The passengers were rescued after being stranded for more than two hours on a sloping section of track about five meters above the ground. Reports gave the number of passengers as either 15 or 18, while the reported duration of their entrapment ranged from “about two hours” to “around two hours and 20 minutes.” The company cited “insufficient battery charge due to falling temperatures” as the cause of the accident.

Immediately after the accident, the incident was criticized as a “disaster waiting to happen.” It had been confirmed that the company had failed to properly comply with repeated corrective orders from the administrative authorities. The day after the accident, Dong District notified the company that it could not use the monorail until it submitted a report on the circumstances of the accident. After the company submitted the report, the district instructed it to provide supplementary documents demonstrating the battery’s performance. This meant operations were to remain suspended until the monorail’s safety had been confirmed.

5. “Car No. 2” Sign (November 2023)

However, the company’s representative, Mr. A, resumed operations without submitting the supplementary documents. On November 26 and 28, he put a sign reading “Car No. 2” in front of the very same Car No. 1 that had been ordered out of service and carried passengers on it. In effect, the company made the accident-involved train appear to be a different one and continued selling tickets and transporting passengers. Some reports also said that the company continued operating even after being caught again and receiving written notice.

In the end, Mr. A and the company were indicted on suspicion of violating the Tourism Promotion Act. On May 11, 2026, the Gwangju District Court sentenced Mr. A to a fine of 10 million won and the company to a fine of 5 million won. The court said that “in light of the circumstances and nature of the offenses, as well as the number of times they were committed, the culpability is by no means minor.” It also took into account that they admitted and regretted their actions, and that they had investigated the cause themselves, tested the battery’s performance, and made efforts to prevent a recurrence.

6. Monorail Stops Again (October 2025)

Even before the verdict, the monorail stopped again during the 2025 Chuseok holiday. At around 3 p.m. on October 7, a monorail in service stopped, leaving 16 passengers anxious. They had to transfer to another monorail that departed afterward. Dong District said it had provisionally identified the driver’s lack of skill as the cause, but reports also said that service had been delayed by around 30 minutes that day because of a charging issue, leaving the explanations for the cause inconsistent. The district said it would take administrative action after conducting an on-site safety inspection, and that it could order operations to be suspended if it found a serious problem. Local media called for fundamental measures, saying that service interruptions were recurring because of aging equipment and poor management.

7. Authenticity debate

The facts of the case itself were established by the court’s ruling. The remaining question is whether the “number-plate switch” was the misconduct of a single business operator, or a problem with the entire management system surrounding a facility that is decades old.

7.1. The view that it was the operator’s misconduct

The conduct confirmed by the court is clear. Even though the train involved in the accident had been ordered out of service, the company failed to submit the required documents and put a different number on the train before carrying passengers. This can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to evade enforcement, not a mistake. The criticism that the company repeatedly treated administrative orders lightly is persuasive, particularly given that it had been reported over the operation of unauthorized amusement rides just eight months earlier.

7.2. The view that it was a problem with the management system

However, the argument that responsibility cannot be placed solely on the operator is also substantial. Chairlift accidents occurred at the park almost every year starting in 2008, and the monorail was first installed in 1980. Operations continued until the accident despite repeated failures to comply with administrative corrective orders, and even the order issued after the accident was rendered ineffective with a single number plate. There is also the question of whether a first-instance fine of 10 million won serves as a sufficient warning given the accident that left dozens of passengers suspended in midair and the violation of the order. In fact, the monorail stopped again in 2025, before the verdict. Is this really a problem that would be solved if just one person were replaced?

8. Trivia

• The victim of the 2015 chairlift fall stated, “When we had passed one-third of the way, it suddenly started making a jolting noise and picking up speed, and then the safety bar went up over our heads, causing us to fall.” Fortunately, the couple were not seriously injured.
• The operation of unauthorized amusement rides in 2023 came to light through photos and posts on social media by visitors who had ridden them, not through an enforcement inspection.
• Reports say that inspections by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority recorded four accidents involving the Jisan Amusement Park chairlift over three consecutive years, from 2014 to 2016.