Watch: New footage shows exact moment of Alton Towers Smiler crash
This is the moment disaster struck the Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster, revealed in CCTV which can be published for the first time today.
The footage shows how a train full of passengers slammed into an empty carriage which was still on the track after a test run.
The images were released as Alton Towers operator Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd faced sentencing, and a fine which could top £10 million, after admitting a health and safety breach on the 14-loop ride.
The new images show an empty train beginning its test run at around 1.40pm, but failing to complete the test around a minute later and then rolling back on the track. It takes more than two minutes for the train to come to a complete standstill.
It is still stationary on the track at 1.51pm, when a train carrying passengers begins its journey around the loops. The precise moment of impact is captured at 1.51.31. Both trains can be seen rolling back and forward.
Other people at the park can then be seen moving towards the ride after hearing the impact.
Vicky Balch, then 19, and Leah Washington, then 17, who each lost a leg in the crash in June last year and several other people who were trapped for hours attended Stafford Crown Court on Monday for the first day of the sentencing hearing, which is expected to finish tomorrow.
See also: Alton Towers Smiler crash impact like 90mph smash
Prosecuting, Bernard Thorogood told the court that the passengers on the £18 million ride watched with "disbelief and horror" as realised they were going to collide with an empty carriage.
He said the kinetic energy involved in the crash on June 2 2015 was equivalent to "a family car of 1.5 tons having collided at about 90mph".
