High Number of Incidents?

[Flyerer 0]

To those of you with more experience, that have been following these forums much longer than I: Does it seem like there is an unusually high number of incidents as of late? And if so, what is going on?

[Lucky... 0]

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To those of you with more experience, that have been following these forums much longer than I: Does it seem like there is an unusually high number of incidents as of late? And if so, what is going on?

Not really, seems the same, possibly lighter from some years, w/o researching numbers. Remember, summer is worse.

[MamaFu 0]

Thank you for clarifying...people seem to forget, the better the weather, the more crowded the skies...Summer is always busier in our world...

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[dqpacker 7]

It seems like every summer there is a post like this. In the summer more people jump, so the more likely something will happen.
This is skydiving, people get hurt and die.

[Flyerer 0]

Thank you all for the perspective.

[ShayneH 0]

2 deaths in the last two days :(

[Rdutch 0]

Statistically now its safer to jump now that those are out of the way.

Ray
Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

[kallend 1,652]

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To those of you with more experience, that have been following these forums much longer than I: Does it seem like there is an unusually high number of incidents as of late? And if so, what is going on?

Poisson distribution, aka Poisson Law of Small Numbers.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kkeenan 13]

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Statistically now its safer to jump now that those are out of the way.

What an incredibly Fucked-Up thing to say.

[kmills0705 0]

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Statistically now its safer to jump now that those are out of the way.

What an incredibly Fucked-Up thing to say.

I think he was being a little facetious.

Kim Mills
USPA D21696
Tandem I, AFF I and Static Line I

[riggerrob 561]

If you read enough USPA Annual Fatality Summaries, you will start to see a cycle that repeats itself every year.

The cycle starts in January with rusty skydivers slamming themselves into the ground at warm-weather DZs (Arizona, Florida and California).

Then fatalities shift to cold-weather states (e.g. Wisconsin) when rusty jumpers air out their parachutes for the first time in the spring.

The next surge of injuries occurrs in August when burn-out - or over-confident - skydivers hurt them selves.

Mid-summer boogies are popular places for skydivers to hurt themselves.

Fatalities taper off in the autumn, with a the last few fatalities occurring during Thanksgiving boogies in warm states.

Then the cycle repeats itself starting with Christmas boogies in warm states (see second paragraph).

[MikeJD 0]

As others have said, there's a seasonal pattern - and if nothing else, if it's the 'on season' in parts of the world where most jumping is done, more people will be getting hurt during that period.

Also, I'm no statistician but it seems to me that when we're talking about relatively small numbers of incidents (which, thankfully, we are) it only takes a small number of additional incidents to generate a large percentage increase.

[Trae 1]

in reply to "To those of you with more experience, that have been following these forums much longer than I: Does it seem like there is an unusually high number of incidents as of late? And if so, what is going on? "
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Eg.. in the 80's the statistics were way higher approx 50 fatalities a year from memory.
Lots of no pulls and COD-Impact.

IMHO now the prominent COD is simply excessive speed.
Its as if skydivers have forgotton how to cruise.
Even the reserves have to be tiny and go faster.
The DZ's also seemed to have shrunk.
Looks a bit silly from some points of view .. kinda counter productive survival tactics.

Whats going on ?

Mass delusion?

IMHO skydiving has mutated into an extreme sport where all the behaviour HAS to be extreme.
It used to be just a fun thing to do .....now its 'AWESOME' and full of awesomites whom insist on driving faster.... IMO quite unecessarily.

AS to the number of incidents you may just be getting a ringside view that others are missing. I went for years with not even seeing a serious injury. Then it seemed like everyone was getting badly hurt or dead. ( that was ZP arriving.)
Then Base jumping skydivers started disappearing .
More recently I've noticed the disappearance of a proportionally high number of wingsuiting Base jumpers.

One thing I do find interesting is the apparent flurry of incidents sometimes. Sure this can be put down to the summer months in the northern hemisphere however these flurries sometimes feel more like a collective madness that keeps pushing until some-one gets hurt. Then everyone backs off until it builds up... again.
I've experienced this in groups of jumpers eg boogies where things can sometimes reach a crescendo until something breaks. This may be occurring on a larger scale creating waves of safety consciousness replaced in phases by the need for speed until.....oops - TOO fast .

So what is going on may be , just perhaps, two opposing forces 'Safety v's Pushing the Envelope' managing to work together albeit with some casualties along the way.

[ManagingPrime 0]

LOL...Think I'm going to delete my thread and start reading this one in detail after seeing it bumped up now.