As X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain remains shuttered after multiple riders sustained serious injuries, I’m ultimately not too upset that I never got to add it to my credits list.
For roller coaster enthusiasts across the world, Six Flags Magic Mountain is a sought-after haven of thrills, with several of the continent’s most thrilling rides located at the Los Angeles-area theme park.
While the massive park has a coaster for just about everyone, thrillseekers have singled out X2 (originally X) for nearly a quarter-century, with the coaster’s unique design, seating layout and intensity being revered by those seeking the craziest of thrills.
Having opened in the midst of the coaster wars that saw parks across North America compete for spots in the recordbooks, X charted its own path as one of the most unique roller coasters of all-time – as well as the swan song for Arrow Dynamics, which officially dissolved in 2002.
After a soft opening on Christmas Eve 2001, X opened to the public for the first time on Jan. 12, 2002 as the world’s first four-dimension roller coaster.
As opposed to a traditional roller coaster that positions riders two or four across directly on top of the track, X features winged seating, with two riders placed on each side of the track – with riders boarding the coaster as the train faces backwards up the lift hill.
Though X wasn’t built to break any height or speed records, it is plenty tall and fast enough to scare the shit out of most riders – ascending 175 feet before taking a 215-foot plunge at 88.5 degrees while reaching top speeds of 76 miles per hour.
The fear of this ride is apparent from the very start, with riders ascending up the lift hill backwards at a snail’s pace, unaware of the frightening plunge waiting on the other side as the Southern California sun beams down on the train.
By the time the coaster reaches the crest of the lift hill, the fourth-dimension aspect of the ride comes into play as the seats tilt straight down for the drop, giving riders a free-fall sensation for the long, nearly-vertical descent.
The fourth-dimension design is made possible by having four rails on the track – two that guide the roller coaster’s train as normal, while the other two move up and down relative to the main track, allowing the seats on the train to rotate in unison in the same direction – meaning the seats on the ride are not free-spinning.
Enough of my words though – take the reaction of one of YouTube’s most seasoned coaster enthusiasts as proof that this ride does not fuck around one bit.
Now to get into the troubled history of this coaster.
Due to the coaster’s novel design and the fact that it was also the final Arrow Dynamics coaster before the company dissolved shortly thereafter, maintenance for X was a nightmare from the very beginning – leading to its reputation as a generally unreliable coaster.
During the ride’s first year of operation, mobility issues with some of the seats led to an indefinite closure that ultimately lasted much of the summer. After a few years of X being perhaps the park’s most finnicky ride, the coaster was shuttered in December 2007 for a full redesign, later opening on May 24, 2008 as the reimagined X2.
While whispers of injuries on the ride have circulated for much of the coaster’s lifespan, those whispers took a dramatic and tragic turn this summer. X2 has been closed since July 12, 2026 due to two women suffering similar brain hemorrhages on the ride within six days of each other in early July.
According to surgeons, the injuries can be attributed to rapid acceleration-deceleration events similar to what people sustain in violent car crashes. Given the already jerky motion of the ride with clunky, hard, uncomfortable seats, there’s truly no telling at what moment in the coaster did these horrific injuries occur.
Last summer, a Southern California family filed a lawsuit alleging that X2 was the catalyst for a fatal brain injury inflicted on a 22-year-old man who rode the coaster in June 2022. Ultimately, dozens of stories have since emerged, ranging from unreported concussions sustained by riders to those that suffered life-altering disabilities and even fatalities over the course of the coaster’s nearly 25-year lifespan.
I’ve visited Six Flags Magic Mountain twice in my life, and I didn’t ride X2 on either occasion.
During my first visit as a 17-year-old in March 2013 on a high school band trip, my close friend and I were determined to ride everything we could, buying flash passes for the day and riding front row on just about every coaster in the park – besides X2, which had insanely long lines and was not available with the flash passes we had purchased. Not wanting to waste two hours of our one day at the park waiting in line, we opted to skip it.
Nearly 11 years later, my wife and I visited the park together on a trip to Southern California in January 2024. Now 27 years old at this point, I was not nearly as eager to hop on everything I could, making sure to ride the coasters that had opened since my previous visit while still viewing X2 as a bit too wild and intense for me – even as someone who prides myself as a roller coaster freak who will ride just about anything. X2 is the reason for the “just about” caveat.
What’s sad and disappointing about this is the fact that not only should roller coasters be an incredibly safe and fun activity for people of all ages, they legitimately are. Incidents like these do not happen on other roller coasters, the vast majority of which are designed to balance the elements of fun and intensity. X2, which was designed to scare the living shit out of riders, was just a bit too much for myself, and clearly is too much to be a reliable, safe ride.
This take likely upsets hardcore thoosies who are holding on to whatever hope they can find that X2 will operate again. Maybe I’m wrong and it will once again reopen, but let me be clear – it absolutely should not. In the year 2026, where all of the safety precautions and information in the world is available and at our fingertips, continuing to give this ride another shot is pure negligence.
The closure of X2 gained heightened attention last week after an in-depth CNN story interviewed those who were injured on the coaster – having their lives forever changed on a day that is supposed to be pure fun and elation, without a worry in the world. When I think about how I’m just about always in an optimistic mood knowing I have a day of coasters ahead of me, it breaks my heart to know that people’s lives were forever changed from just trying to have that same kind of fun.
It was also upsetting to see that the top-rated comments for the video were twisted victim-blaming messages, such as “it’s literally like signing up for car crashes” – as if somebody getting in line for a roller coaster with their family is supposed to look at it like that.
Not only does this upset me that incidents like these make many people believe that roller coasters are akin to sky diving, it also upsets me that corporate negligence over the course of multiple decades allowed incidents like these to occur – when this ride really was just too intense to ever be operating in the first place.
Lifelong thoosies will likely argue that riders should know how to ride defensively, to keep their head back at all times and to know what they’re getting into – but that is just a mind-bogglingly ignorant position to take.
The vast, vast majority of people riding roller coasters have no clue about them. They don’t know the manufacturer, how tall it is and how fast it goes, the names of the different elements or even more importantly – what those elements will feel like with whatever safety restraints are on the train.
These are all major characteristics that impact the riding experience for everyone that really only big time coaster dorks are actively thinking about. A roller coaster, at the end of the day, is a ride. It is something to be experienced after sitting down and buckling up. The part of you having the responsibility to look out for protecting yourself should be over by the time you sit down.
On 99.9% of coasters, it is – which is why after over 24 years of operation, it is time for X2 to be shuttered for good.
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