Carnival ride seat detaches, woman plunges 40 feet in freak accident

FREDERICK COUNTY, VA -- Engineers in Virginia are still trying to figure out what went wrong with a carnival ride that sent a 47-year-old woman plunging four stories on Monday.

Local station WJLA reports the accident happened on "Super Shot," a free-fall ride, which raises riders to the top of a tower and drops them. The woman's seat detached and she fell 40 feet to the ground -- still in the seat.

The woman was seriously hurt in the fall. A cable broke but investigators still don't know why.