An inquest into the death of four people on a Dreamworld water ride has heard an “almost identical” collision occurred two years prior and a ride operator was fired.

Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett, Roozi Araghi and Cindy Low were killed when they were thrown from a vessel on the Thunder River Rapids ride in October 2016.

The inquiry has heard a large water pump feeding the ride broke down, water levels dropped and a raft got stuck on the conveyor before two vessels collided.

Dreamworld employee Chloe Brix worked on the ride regularly and told the inquest she heard “through gossip” that a ride operator was terminated in November 2014 because of a safety issue but was never told by management what exactly had occurred.

Barrister Steven Whybrow, for Kate Goodchild and Luke Dorsett, told the court it was “an almost identical incident of rafts coming into contact” after a pump had gone off.

“I’ll suggest this is what apparently had occurred,” Mr Whybrow said.

“The operator … shut down a pump on the Rapid ride without verifying the location of all of the rafts.”

“This led to a situation where a raft containing guests bottomed out at the top of the conveyor due to a lack of water supply.

“An additional raft containing guests has then collided with it, which continued to be pushed by the conveyor until the conveyor was shut down.

“Are you aware of that incident?”

“No,” Ms Brix replied.

“You were just made aware that he had not followed procedure about stopping and starting up pumps?” Mr Whybrow asked.

“Yes.”

The inquest heard on Thursday that a senior ride operator had not participated in any emergency drills or simulations since the fatalities in 2016.

Prior to the event there was also “no scenario training” from Dreamworld to deal with an event of rafts being stranded on a conveyor belt.

The court also heard there was no alarm to signal when a pump had malfunctioned on the Thunder River Rapids ride.

-ABC