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CSpenceFLY

Anyone have a count on fatalities for the year?

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It looks like it is around 45-50 worldwide. I may be a little off

I have a question for the veterans and people that have been in the sport for more then 5 years. I have been in the sport 4 years in December and looking back at everything I have known 14 people who have passed away.... is this normal??

If I stay in the sport, and I will, can I expect that in a given year I will lose 3 friends on average?

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16 for the year in the US.

That's the number I came up with after Ed Scott informed us we were at 14 for the year yesterday at the USPA BOD meeting here in Alexandria.
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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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I was just talking with my wife about this after reading the canopy collision thread.

My real question is : How many of these were preventable???? I know I don't know everything but I can think of a couple.[:/]B|:(>:(:S



Almost all fatalities are the result of human error and thus preventable. It will take people pulling their head out of their ass and realizing they are not nearly as good as they think. If you read the fatality reports for the last 6 months you will find they are just a repeat of the reports from 6 years ago. There is a small segment of the skydiving community that refuse to learn form the mistakes of others and the past. In reality they are immature and selfish with little concern for the safety of other. Sad [:/]

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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15 years in the sport

I know 31 people who have died Skydiving, BASE jumping, or parting at a DZ. [:/]




33 years in the sport. . . . I quit counting a long time ago. :|


Yeah, I don't even want to know how many I've lost. I quit counting after Sandy Wambach.
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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I am with you on that Sparky!!!!

I am afraid that people have the "it's not gonna happen to me" symptom which leads them to think that they can do whatever they want.

I like having fun as much as the next person, but not at your expense.

The one area I disagree with you is on Sad- it's not only sad, it's F---ing DISGUSTING. These people are NOT part on "my community" >:( they are future meat bombs- I just hope they only hurt themselves.

Nathan

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I was just talking with my wife about this after reading the canopy collision thread.

My real question is : How many of these were preventable???? I know I don't know everything but I can think of a couple.[:/]B|:(>:(:S




Every one.



If people are trained properly, and educated the right about the dangers of skydiving, then these sorts of accidents are completely preventable.

If not, then no rule book in the world will keep people from offing themselves, and unfortunately they are taking others with them.
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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

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When I made my first jump back in '79 one of the experienced jumpers was telling us about a friend that had gone in, and said that if we stuck with the sport long enough we would know somebody who died jumping too. I didn't really believe him, but was weirded out by the fact that I knew somebody, who knew somebody, who went in, and yet I was jumping anyway.

So now, a bit more than 25 years later, I'm nodding my head in recognition with so many of the old timers, and sadly I can't even remember all the names of the people that bounced. I can still recall many of the accidents, but the names and many of the faces have long since slipped into forgotten history. Sad.

Skydiving is a really fun sport, but it is deadly consequential.
Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

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Within 1 year of my first jump back in '75, 2 people at my medium-sized home DZ had died. Back then, with the exception of fatal freefall collisions or freefall-into-canopy collisions, most deaths were no/low-pulls or failed EP's - things dependent mostly on things you could control, and less on other people's actions that were totally out of your control. In short, most of the time, people just got themselves killed, but not others (often).

But no more. Yesterday I was tempted to try the cold comfort of saying this is "just" (just?) the "usual" (usual?) mid-summer spike. But this morning, in the wake of DL and Pablo, I woke up in a foul mood, even thinking about quitting, because - far more than back when I started - no matter how very, very careful I am myself, there's always the "chance" that someone else will take me out in a canopy collision, no matter how careful I am. In my gut, that chance seems to feel a bit greater each year. If "chance" of it starts feeling too much like "likelihood", that may be when it's time to push away. Keeping my head on a swivel can only go so far.

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no matter how very, very careful I am myself, there's always the "chance" that someone else will take me out in a canopy collision

How very,very true. My first post here in 2002 was looking for information about a friend of mine that had been killed at Lake Wales. I say killed, not died, because thats what happened. It would be no different if someone got up in the plane and cut his risers off with a hook knife and pushed him out. The end result is the same.

Until we, as a group, make it socially unacceptable to fly anything other than a predictable standard pattern, when there are other canopies in the air,the death toll will continue to rise.

Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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It would be no different if someone got up in the plane and cut his risers off with a hook knife and pushed him out.



Although that part of your analogy is over the top (one is a careless act resulting in death, the other is premeditated murder), I basically feel just as you do and agree with the rest of your post.

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Depends on how you look at it. There is no reason to be hooked out of the sky. Seems a little more premeditated then a careless act. I could believe that if it was a rare occurence, or the first twenty times this has happened.
Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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I have the solution.Just have them wear this patch on their left shoulder of their jump suit, and then I can make an informed decision on getting on the plane.
Replying to: Re: Stall On Jump Run Emergency Procedure? by billvon

If the plane is unrecoverable then exiting is a very very good idea.

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16 for the year in the US.

That's the number I came up with after Ed Scott informed us we were at 14 for the year yesterday at the USPA BOD meeting here in Alexandria.



Here's the detail from DZ.com reports:

2- AFF Students
2- Tandem Instructor & Student- Low turn/ Hard Landing
1- Hard Landing due to canopy stall on final
3- Canopy Collision on final
8- Failure to respond to emergency situation and initiate procedures.

According to what has been reported here, most of these individuals experienced a loss of consciousness or altitude awareness either due to control issues w/ a x-braced canopy, a hard opening, or contact w/ the aircraft after exit. Most of these jumpers also did not have an AAD installed or active during the jump.
"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

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I must be lucky, that in the 7 years Ive been skydiving, I can only think of 2 people that I have at least met that have died whilst skydiving. There are about 2-3 others though that probably could have died and got away with only a broken femur.

Of the two fatalities, one was an instructor who got me through most the level to my A, and the other I had only met a couple of times at a couple of boogies. The injured few were jumpers from my ex-home DZ.

But like someone else said, I am probably linked to all the other fatalities via a friend of a friend or some such. ie. for every fatality, I will probably know someone that it affects.

UK Skydiver for all your UK skydiving needs.

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Until we, as a group, make it socially unacceptable to fly anything other than a predictable standard pattern, when there are other canopies in the air,the death toll will continue to rise.



i disagree and say, as long as we as a group make it socially unacceptable to leap from an airplane when there is more than 3ft between you and the ground, the death toll will continue to rise.

only irresponsible people need regulations like that, because otherwise, they would take responsibility of their actions and act accordingly.. jeeesus..

and may i add, its easier to stay ignorant and cry for more regulations!
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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Until we, as a group, make it socially unacceptable to fly anything other than a predictable standard pattern, when there are other canopies in the air,the death toll will continue to rise.



i disagree and say, as long as we as a group make it socially unacceptable to leap from an airplane when there is more than 3ft between you and the ground, the death toll will continue to rise.

only irresponsible people need regulations like that, because otherwise, they would take responsibility of their actions and act accordingly.. jeeesus..

and may i add, its easier to stay ignorant and cry for more regulations!



I'm pretty sure he meant "...death toll caused by canopy collisions and near-misses" (i.e., a low-altitude evasive maneuver where a person screws himself into the ground avoiding a canopy collision)

He also didn't say "regulations", he said "socially unacceptable" (implying consensus, even if not unanimity); but regardless of its label, there are at least 2 types of human responsibility: individual and collective. Like it or not, when you jump at a DZ with other jumpers, you're part of a collective; and all collectives have norms and standards. It's just a question of where, on the spectrum, to place them. Now if you personally find that intolerable, you're always at liberty to hire a plane and find an open field somewhere to do solos into.

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you're in the sport long enough, tell me how many of your friends swoop (safely) and how many of those would be very unhappy if it got "socially unacceptable"!?

i'm in the sport for one year myself, i jump in a small country where pretty much most jumpers are known to each other, or at least have met once. i have never witnessed or heard of close-calls.

its not easy getting a license here. some people take 150 jumps or more until they're looked at as "safe and competent enough" to be let in the air with everyone else.
“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

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you're in the sport long enough, tell me how many of your friends swoop (safely) and how many of those would be very unhappy if it got "socially unacceptable"!?



Most of them who swoop do so safely, and unfortunately, a few of them do not. There are plenty of "socially acceptable" ways, which have been discussed here and elsewhere in the community for years now, for swoopers to get their swoop on without killing other jumpers. If that's still not good enough for them, then I guess they'll just have to join you in that field you'll be doing solos into.

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