How is this news? This kind of thing happens every day at every theme park in the world. I got stuck on Nemesis for 10 minutes last time I went to Alton Towers and I didn't care at all.
This isn't going to affect their reputation one bit, people who go to theme parks know that the rides breakdown. The Smiler accident will, because people got injured but that's different.
The Daily Mirror have been waging a hate campaign against Alton Towers since the Smiler accident and they look for any little thing to revive the story and get more clicks despite the victims just wanting to be left alone. The suspected reasoning is because their rivals (The Sun) have a marketing contract with Merlin.