Thrill Seekers Say Goodbye to the World’s Tallest Roller Coaster
After towering over Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey for two decades, Kingda Ka is slated for demolition—and fans are sharing their favorite memories of the iconic ride
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For two decades, the world’s tallest roller coaster—Kingda Ka—has towered over Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. Standing 456 feet tall, the bright green steel coaster is one of the first things visitors see as they approach the amusement park in Jackson Township, located roughly 20 miles east of Trenton.
Now, however, it’s time for the record-setting coaster to come down. Demolition crews are slated to implode the beloved ride sometime this month. The exact date of the implosion has not been announced, but work is already underway to dismantle Kingda Ka, report the Asbury Park Press’ Mike Davis and Eve Chen. (A permit filed by the park said the implosion would take place between February 11 and February 16, but bad weather and other issues have caused delays.)
In the meantime, Kingda Ka fans are parking on the road outside the 50-year-old theme park, in hopes of watching the controlled implosion. The seasonal park is closed and will reopen in late March.
“A lot of people are still emotionally attached to Kingda Ka,” Matt Kaiser, the New Jersey representative for the nonprofit American Coaster Enthusiasts, tells the Asbury Park Press. “It’s a really big deal for it to come down.”
Kingda Ka opened on May 21, 2005. It secured the Guinness World Record for the world’s tallest roller coaster made from steel—a record it still holds today. At the time, it was also the world’s fastest rollercoaster, though it has since lost that crown to the Formula Rossa at Ferrari World in the United Arab Emirates.
Using a hydraulic launch system, Kingda Ka went from 0 to 128 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds. Riders slingshotted from a horizontal position to the top of the 456-foot loop before gliding back down again. The whole ride lasted less than a minute.
“There’s nothing quite like it—a shotgun blast of adrenaline as you’re catapulted forward, the world blurring into streaks of green and sky,” writes Chris K. Barnegat for Shore News Network. “Before you can even catch your breath, you’re soaring up, up, up, cresting that monstrous hill, only to plummet back down in a stomach-dropping freefall.”
However, much to the chagrin of its many die-hard fans, Kingda Ka endured repeated closures for maintenance and repairs—including a period in 2009 when it shut down after being struck by lightning. It closed most recently in 2023 after the launch cable snapped.
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In November, the park announced that it would be “sunsetting” Kingda Ka after more than 12 million rides.
“We understand that saying goodbye to beloved rides can be difficult, and we appreciate our guests’ passion,” said Brian Bacica, the park’s president, in the statement. “These changes are an important part of our growth and dedication to delivering exceptional new experiences.”
While the park is saying goodbye to Kingda Ka—as well as two other rides, the Twister and Parachutes—it’s preparing to open a new launch coaster in 2026. The park hasn’t shared many details about that new ride yet, only that it’s expected to break several records.
This spring, Six Flags Great Adventure is slated to open the first “super boomerang” coaster in North America, The Flash: Vertical Velocity. It will send riders both backward and forward at speeds of up to 59 miles per hour.
“It’s hard to overstate how much [Kingda Ka] meant to me as a kid growing up in New Jersey,” wrote John Wiley, a resident of Glen Ridge, in a memory shared with the Asbury Park Press’ Mike Davis. “More than that, it represented a level of ambition in engineering and scale that few parks in this part of the world can stomach anymore. I hope whatever replaces it lives up to that legacy.”
