Two new play attractions closed at Exploration Place until repairs are made
Two of the attractions at Exploration Place’s new Adventure Playscape — its soaring rocket and replica Beech Staggerwing biplane — remain closed after a social media post by a concerned local mom went viral across Wichita.
But Exploration Place president and CEO Adam Smith said that crews will be at the playground on Saturday to make needed repairs, adding that he doesn’t believe the problems raised in the post are reflective of the playground’s overall safety.
He offered assurances that the equipment at the $25 million park is visually inspected each day and comprehensively inspected once a week.
“We do not believe these issues reflect systemic problems,” Smith said via email, as he was traveling and unable to take a phone call. “We carefully selected industry-leading manufacturers to ensure top quality and safety.”
Technicians from the Danish manufacturer that made the equipment have come up with a long-term solution to the problems pointed in the post: broken plastic clips on the park’s rocket and loose bolts on its climbable red biplane.
Smith said that Exploration Place staff was unaware of the problems with the plane until the social media post went up. The staff knew about the broken clips on the rocket but had determined, in consultation with the manufacturer, that the clips were nonstructural and didn’t pose a safety risk, Smith said.
They closed the biplane as soon as they learned about the issue, he said, then closed the rocket as a precaution.
Britt McNally, the Wichita mother of three whose Facebook post stirred concerns about the new park, said she doubts her family will return to Adventure Playscape — or even to Exploration Place, where she’s been a member for at least 10 years.
“I’m not knowledgeable about play equipment, but my play equipment in my backyard that I’ve had for 10 years isn’t falling apart, and my kids play on it every day,” she said.
Child’s short get stuck on biplane’s loose bolt
Adventure Playscape, a 6 1/2-acre playground that includes 10 individual, Kansas-themed playgrounds plus a cascading water feature, opened just as Wichita school children were starting spring break in March. And it’s been a big hit: Smith said that it’s already lured 100,000 visitors and been the impetus for thousands of new museum memberships.
McNally and her 13-year-old son, 11-year-old daughter, and 8-year-old son — who has autism — visited the park for the first time on Saturday, she said. The excited family had been talking about the visit all week.
She’s not a helicopter mother, McNally said, but when her oldest son started yelling to her from the biplane — “Mom! He’s stuck! — she grew alarmed. The older boy was talking about his youngest brother, McNally said, and she had to climb up the equipment to retrieve her son, whose cargo shorts had become caught on a loose bolt.
“I got him free, and I took a picture and thought, ‘Okay, one time is a fluke,’” she said.
The kids went on to climb the rocket, which sits uphill from the biplane. But soon, her youngest was screaming again. He’d gotten caught on a broken piece of plastic as he tried to climb into the rocket.
“After that, I was done,” she said. “I went inside, and in a matter of I want to say 10 minutes, I spoke to three different employees and got nowhere.”
She decided to leave, she said, and when she returned home, she reached out to Exploration Place via Facebook Messenger, via email and by phone, leaving a detailed voice mail. When she didn’t get a response, she decided she wanted to make other families aware and on Sunday evening, she posted about her experience on Facebook, sharing three up-close photos of the damage.
By late on Wednesday, her post had received 374 likes, had been shared 186 times and had been commented on by 315 people, most wondering how the expensive park could be having issues already.
On Wednesday morning, McNally said, she got a call from Exploration Place’s vice president of marketing, who told her that the equipment was thoroughly inspected weekly. But she was dubious that grown men climbed all the way inside the equipment to inspect it closely.
“I said, ‘Okay, well, I don’t believe you,’” McNally said.
Typical growing pains?
Smith said that, although the playground includes equipment from suppliers based in the United States and abroad, the rocket and the biplane were both made by Monstrum Playgrounds, a Danish manufacturer renowned for custom, world-class playground designs. Monstrum also supplied some of the equipment at Tulsa’s Gathering Place park.
Normal use of the two pieces of Wichita’s rocket and biplane, he said, revealed design weaknesses. The broken parts are covered under the manufacturer’s warranty.
Exploration Place went to great lengths during the playground’s planning to make sure it would be safe, Smith said. It chose industry-leading manufacturers and voluntarily designed and built the playground to American Society for Testing and Materials standards, which are considered the gold standard for playground and water-play safety, he said.
Exploration Place also commissioned an independent, comprehensive safety inspection covering every fixture and fitting and also created a dedicated Safety and Security department led by a certified playground safety inspector, Smith said. Additionally, four staff members are certified Aquatic Facility Operators.
All incident reports at the park are reviewed in detail by a safety committee, he said. The staff performs daily walkthroughs as well as comprehensive weekly inspections. It also plans to perform independent annual inspections. Many similar playgrounds, he said, inspect monthly or biweekly, but Exploration Place chose weekly inspections “to maintain the highest safety standards.”
“Similar state-of-the art adventure playscape projects nationwide have experienced comparable growing pains,” he said. “Exploration Place’s expansion is a new, ambitious attraction for Wichita and the region . . .We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback and thousands of new memberships from families wanting to return, based on their experience and judgment.
Smith said that he appreciated McNally’s willingness to speak with the museum and that Exploration Place took seriously her report that she was unable to get immediate help from the staff. He said he was investigating the incident.
Smith does not want to be dismissive of visitor concerns, he said.
“I take safety very seriously,” he said. “Active play inherently carries some risk, just as bicycling or many youth sports. The robust safety framework and protocols I described here are just the baseline; our ongoing goal is to foster a culture of continuous improvement of continuous improvement in safety throughout the organization.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 9:15 AM.
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