"Basically, there is no other way unless she was rocking it side to side or forward and back, or reaching out of it, that she would have come out of her seat," Ken Martin, an Amusement Park Safety Analyst and Consultant, told DailyMail.com.
Scores of local people remarked that the girl had been trying to kick trees with her feet when she slid out from the seat and became stuck.
The police would not comment on such speculation.
Warren County sheriff's Lt Steven Stockdale told The Post-Star of Glens Falls that "human error" on the part of the teen caused her to slip out of the two-person gondola, which traverses the popular summertime tourist attraction located in Queensbury, 89km north of Albany.
Police released no other details on what the girl may have done to cause her to slip under the restraining bar.
The teen was taken to Albany Medical Center for unspecified injuries. Her name hasn't been released by police.
The hospital said it can't release patient information without the patient's name.
Onlookers, many of them recording the incident with their cellphones, broke into cheers and applause when the girl landed safely in the arms of several people.
The videos posted online show her being carried to a nearby park security golf cart before being whisked away from the scene.
Stockdale said in an email that "it looks like she's going to be okay".
State inspectors cleared the ride for resuming operation, but park officials said the gondolas would remain idle for at least a second day today, pending an internal review.
According to the Six Flags Great Escape website, riders have to be over 1.2 metres if they want to ride alone.
Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a Cincinnati-based industry consultant, said he was familiar with the Sky Ride from visits to the park with his longtime friend, the late Charles Wood, the park's founder.
"It's not something that you could just slip out of," Spiegel said.
"If a rider wants to circumvent the safety stipulations, they can do it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they put additional safety restrictions on this ride, maybe safety belts."
Two safety consultants contacted by CBS said these types of gondola rides have good safety records and insisted that when something goes wrong, it's usually the rider's fault.
Police said the ride was functioning properly when the girl and her brother got on it around 8pm as the sun was setting on a clear, calm evening. The ski lift-style gondolas, one of the oldest rides in a park that opened in 1954 as Story Town, offer riders a slow-moving view of other attractions.
After the girl began dangling from the gondola, word was relayed to the operator to stop the ride. As the teen helplessly flailed her legs, people on the pavement below yelled for her to let go and they would catch her. Matthew Howard Sr, a contractor from Schenectady visiting the park with his family, was among those who broke her fall.
"I couldn't let that little girl die," Howard told journalists yesterday.
- AP, Daily Mail
