Why Is Six Flags Closing X2? Coaster Retired After Brain Injury Claims

• Six Flags Magic Mountain said Tuesday it will permanently retire X2, the spinning-seat roller coaster that has been shut since July 12.
• The park says the ride “consistently passed a multitude of safety tests” but that riders’ confidence was affected. More than 100 riders now allege brain injuries.
• X2 opened in 2002 as the world’s first “4th-dimension” coaster, with seats that flip 360 degrees on their own axis.

Six Flags Magic Mountain is permanently closing X2, the roller coaster that has anchored the park in Valencia, California, for nearly two decades. The park announced it on Tuesday, Sept. 29. The ride has not run since July 12.

The decision follows a wave of lawsuits and claims from riders who say they suffered brain injuries on X2, and an investigation by CNN, published in August, that documented more than a dozen reports of serious injuries and hospitalizations linked to the ride, including at least two deaths.

Is X2 permanently closed?

Yes. In a post on the Six Flags website, park president Brian Oerding wrote that “after almost 20 years, we have decided to permanently retire X2.” The post does not say what will happen to the structure or what, if anything, will replace it.

While X2 consistently passed a multitude of safety tests, we have decided to close the ride because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Ride safety is a cornerstone of our business, and when we see guest confidence affected, we take it seriously.

Brian Oerding, president of Six Flags Magic Mountain

Oerding said X2 has carried more than 16 million guests since it reopened under that name in 2008, and thanked the crews who ran and maintained it. The statement does not address the riders’ injury claims directly.

Two weeks before the shutdown, on June 26, the park posted a video celebrating that “X2’s second train is back” in service, with crews working on the cars at the station.

Why is Six Flags closing X2?

The park’s statement points to “guest confidence.” What shook it is a string of injury claims that grew over the summer.

In July, two women landed in the same Santa Clarita emergency room with brain injuries after riding X2 six days apart, according to CNN. Pamela Guillen lost consciousness after getting off the ride and needed emergency brain surgery.

Naomi Greer-Wilkinson, 26, rode six days later and remains in a coma. The park closed the ride the day after her injury.

Last week, three riders hurt this year, Greer-Wilkinson among them, filed lawsuits alleging that Six Flags had ample notice of the ride’s dangers and should not have kept it running.

At a news conference, attorneys said more than 100 people have come forward alleging brain injuries of varying severity after riding X2 in the last two years alone.

The allegations go back further. Christopher Hawley, 22, died of a traumatic brain injury hours after riding X2 four years ago. The medical examiner attributed his death to blunt head trauma from “a park ride accident,” according to the coroner’s report. His family sued Six Flags and reached a tentative settlement in August.

“It took more than four years and dozens of other injured riders for Six Flags to do the right thing,” his mother, Anne Hawley, told CNN. Guillen, now out of the hospital, said she was “relieved that X2 is closing for good.”

How does X2 work?

X2 is what the industry calls a 4th-dimension coaster. On a normal coaster, the seats are fixed to the car. On X2, pairs of seats hang on wings on either side of the track and rotate forward or backward, a full 360 degrees, independently of where the train is going.

The track has four rails instead of two. Two carry the train; the other two move up and down relative to the track and turn the seats through a rack-and-pinion gear, so riders can be flipped face-down into a drop while the train itself stays upright.

• Drop: 215 feet, at an 88.5-degree angle
• Top speed: 76 mph
• Track: 3,610 feet, with two “raven turns,” a kind of half-loop inversion
• Opened: Jan. 12, 2002, as X, the world’s first 4th-dimension coaster and the last one built by Arrow Dynamics
• Rebuilt: in 2008, with lighter trains, new restraints, onboard audio and a new name, X2

This is the park’s own on-ride footage, posted in 2014, which shows how the seats pitch riders around the track.

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Sources: Brian Oerding, “Retiring X2,” Six Flags Magic Mountain, Sept. 29, 2026; CNN investigation and follow-up reporting (Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken), including statements from Pamela Guillen, Naomi Greer-Wilkinson’s parents and Anne Hawley, and the coroner’s report in the death of Christopher Hawley; CBS Los Angeles (Chelsea Hylton). Medical examiner’s finding as reported by CNN. Photos and video: Six Flags Magic Mountain (“X2,” 2014, and “X2’s Second Train is Back,” June 26, 2026).