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wmw999

Skydiving is inherently dangerous

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Yeah, we have Cypres, and RSL, and better gear and planes than before.

But in the last couple of weeks, 4 extremely experienced & cautious jumpers have died doing normal jumps. Not that they made no mistakes whatsoever -- I'm sure that someone out there could find something they'd call a mistake. But that's true of every single jump most of us make.

Folks, skydiving is serious stuff. It's fun, but it's risky. It's more dangerous than driving to the DZ, and you can't make it safe. These accidents are proof of that.

So be careful out there, and respect what you do. You, and the sport that we love, are worth it.

Wendy P.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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It's more dangerous than driving to the DZ, and you can't make it safe. These accidents are proof of that.



People keep trying to lie to themselves about this all the time. It may not be BASE jumping, but it still is adding a significant amount of risk to your life.
Remster

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Yes Wendy, as usual you are correct. I get sooo tired of people at the DZ tryng to tell themselves and others that the drive out is more dangerous than the dive out!
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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Thanks Wendy,

Agreed wholeheartedly. Your posts and many others here are what make dz.com "worth it". Despite the fact that we all are guilty of being asshats now and then(yourself exempt, never saw it out of you :).

Per Remster it may not be base but I'm sure it's a close second or third. Either way I'm not a nums guy I just know every time I go that it isn't forgiving and I have to be on my best game from packing to pre-flight, ride up, exit, free fall, deployment and landing.

On top of that, I know that sometimes even the best laid plans go to shit.

I'll add, take note from your Seniors, not only in age but experience.

Many many come into this sport and don't get the relevance of jump numbers. Many see it as a pissing contest. Reality is, everyone will share their experience if you only shut up and listen.

Great bunch of people. So sad when we lose anyone.


BSBD,


Jack

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A good friend and I did a statistical comparison of motorcycles, cars, and jumping. We were trying to figure out which of us was more crazy (He commutes by motorcycle every day, good weather, bad, etc). Clearly there are many ways in which we can affect our own safety in all three activities but it was very interesting.

It came out to 1 jump = 38 miles by motorcycle or about 400 miles by car.

If you only do one jump and and drive to the DZ on a motorcycle the commute may actually be more dangerous.

The per jump fatality rate is deceptive. Most sports get their fatalities divided by the number of participants. The USPA reports this, but people tend to look at the per jump numbers.

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chedlin

A good friend and I did a statistical comparison of motorcycles, cars, and jumping.

The per jump fatality rate is deceptive. Most sports get their fatalities divided by the number of participants. The USPA reports this, but people tend to look at the per jump numbers.



One comparison method is Defects per Million Opportunity (DPMO), but I often see it stated at deaths per 100,000 opportunities. I have seen numbers that show skydiving as similar to running, swimming, soccer and other sports but the real outlier is Snow mobiling.

All these numbers are interesting, but when we look at our sport so much stuff is still avoidable. Many of these have been debated before but what I see as concerning is plain lack of awareness of the inherent danger. I see people who don't know what size reserve they have, don't know how there equipment functions, don't do gear checks or if they do, don't know how to spot an error.

I am new to the sport so I don't know if this is ignorance, apathy, over familiarity or something else but I would be interested in the thoughts of people who have grown up with the sport over time.

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what I see as concerning is plain lack of awareness of the inherent danger



Some of it, I truly believe, just takes time. You can only absorb so much as a student/new jumper, which is why newbie instruction focuses on the most critical safety functions and attempts to control variables where possible. New risks and concepts are introduced slowly, but even then, at the end of A license training, even the best-trained, most aware student has probably only heard/absorbed a tiny portion of what he/she needs to know.

Now, if said person bothers to read the rest of the SIM (or similar documents in their home country), they'll learn a lot about advanced concepts. Some people put away the SIM and don't ever realize there's a lot more to learn from it that goes beyond the basics they need for their A. Some people might cram a little into their noggins to pass a written test for B, C, D... which I think is kind of missing the point.

But it's only being around the sport for a while that really helps you understand all the different variables, to see the big picture, to know all the different ways this sport can go to shit. It's having those "around the bonfire" chats about all the oddball scenarios that can really open your eyes up to the oddball scenarios. It's the "around the bonfire" chats about all the common scenarios that can open your eyes up, too. Maybe you heard something once when you were a student, but it really didn't stick, and it wasn't until that "What would you do?" conversation that it came back to you and you said "OH! THAT'S what they were talking about!"

It's being on the dropzone to see when someone makes a mistake that kills them, hurts them, hurts or kills someone else, or just has a really fucking close call. And it's not just saying "Wow that sucked" but "What happened, what went wrong, and how can we prevent that from happening again?"

It's that root cause analysis, continuing to ask "Why?" so it's not just "Wow, he broke his ankle landing out because the grass was really high and he couldn't see that the ground was rough" but saying "Why did he land out?" [didn't realize the winds were so high] and "Why didn't he realize the winds were so high?" [playing with canopy and not paying attention to how far away he was] and "Why didn't he turn towards the dropzone sooner?" [got distracted doing housekeeping] and "Why didn't he check where he was immediately on opening?" [had to do a rear riser turn to get away from another canopy] "Why was the other canopy so close?" [Group didn't break off high enough to get adequate separation given the skill level] "Why didn't they break off higher?" [No one considered the skill level of the least experienced jumper when deciding when to break off]

It's that kind of thinking and questioning that helps to give you a bigger and bigger picture every day you spend in the sport. But until and unless you start doing that, you're not going to develop all that much as a jumper. I worry that we're going to get more and more folks coming into the sport who've grown up in today's educational environment having been spoon-fed answers who don't bring the kind of curiosity and critical thinking skills that are required to survive and grow.

Every new variable, every new thing, adds another dimension to that critical thinking, and I feel like a lot of people don't recognize that, and just keep throwing things on the pile till eventually they're overwhelmed but don't even know it.

I've been in the sport for almost 9 years, and when I think back to how little I knew in my first couple years, it's sort of remarkable that I didn't really have any big issues. In many ways I'm more conservative now than I was then. I'm a lot less likely to jump on a large jump with a wide mix of skill levels. I'm less likely to do a zoo dive of any sort. I'm wary of the "let's get a planeload of people and do a BFR" way of celebrating a milestone jump, especially if it's a 100th or 200th. I'm more likely to land farther out to stay out of traffic. I'm more likely to sit down when winds get wonky. It's all a matter of risk assessment, and the more you do it - with a true eye towards critical analysis - the better you should become at it.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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I think as a community we have an odd attitude to the danger of the sport.

On the one hand, a lot of jumpers revel in it - witness the Incidents forum. It's a valuable tool, but people will chew over the minutae of an accident - in my opinion - long after the basic lesson has been learned (and let's face it, often it's the same lesson). Yet on the other hand, after all that navel-gazing, we go out and take the same fundamental risks we've always done. I agree with Krisanne that it's good to consider what you'd do in different situations as events stack up - but the most important thing is to break the chain at the first link. I think there's too much time spent ruminating on what-if scenarios in relation to the amount of effort spent actually putting the essentials into practice when we get up there.

I was just discussing with a teammate over the weekend how flying canopies in traffic is unnerving because there seems to be so little teaching of basic etiquette regarding right of way, stack positioning, predictable patterns and so on. Tracking is another good example - too many of us are no good at it, but it's easily overlooked. People (including me!) are driven instead to dedicate 120+ posts to the drama of discovering a chest strap flapping around in freefall. :)
Seems to me that as a species/ society we're just pretty useless at assessing and mitigating risk. People are more afraid of being caught up in a terrorist attack, for example, than they are of being involved in a car wreck. And while I don't dispute that driving is a good deal safer than jumping from aeroplanes, which of us spends even a fraction of the time browsing road safety forums that we dedicate to analysing skydiving fatalities?

Wendy, your sig line is one of my favourites on the site - it's a great mantra for the sport, and for the other dangerous stuff we do in life.

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NWFlyer

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what I see as concerning is plain lack of awareness of the inherent danger



Some of it, I truly believe, just takes time. You can only absorb so much as a student/new jumper, which is why newbie instruction focuses on the most critical safety functions and attempts to control variables where possible.


Many things in life are inherently dangerous. It's just that when faced with a sport that has the participants requiring to take some sort of action to be successfull as compared with sport that dosen't have any consequences this creates a mental schema that generates a lot of discussion.

I want to point out once again that our current state of training isn't doing any favors for students, the biggist offender is the one day jump course. You just can't teach enough to encounter every possible contingency! A human cannot absorb nor can they perform to the level required to skydive safely as a bigginer. Safety is a function then of gear reliability and not training!

You point out "you can only absorb so much...," I point out that it is not possible to absorb enough as a student and for many experienced as well.


Another poser pointed out making statistical comparisons, it is not possible to make these types of comparisons.

You can say things like driving to the DZ is dangerous.

You can say Polo is dangerous.

But you can not say Polo is more or less dangerous than skydiving. It is not statistically possible to make these types of comparisons and to those people that do you are just deluding yourselves and misleading others.

You can say things like: "Skydiving is dangerous" (period.) The evidence is that people get hurt and some die because of this activity. You can say people die also resting in bed, thousands die in bed every day in the world! They didn't expect that outcome did they?

Skydiving has this rep because of the stereotype of having to "PULL." You get on a skateboard and you don't have to pull? But people die on skateboards, in large numbers...the expectation of the activity then has a large measure of hidden expectations and demands associated with the particular activity's social construction in the social and public context dosent it?

C
:)
But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

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Wendy, I think your advice is very well founded. I hope the newbies will take note, think hard on what they plan to do each jump, and discuss it with those they jump with. It is really sad when we lose any jumpers, but much of it could be avoideed by good planning. Debrief after the jump to discuss any " almost problems" that occurred. Stay safe, fly dtrong, and love the sport you're in.




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......Skydiving has this rep because of the stereotype of having to "PULL." You get on a skateboard and you don't have to pull? But people die on skateboards, in large numbers...the expectation of the activity then has a large measure of hidden expectations and demands associated with the particular activity's social construction in the social and public context doesn't it? ........



I have two grown boys and several young people that are close to me that I have coached or encouraged as they learned to drive. One point I always try to make clear that I don't think any of them first grasp, "I is your responsibility not to crash into stuff". They all say, "I know" but most then prove they can't keep from crashing into something. I see skydiving much the same way. Just don't crash into "anything" as a first major step to not getting hurt.
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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I think there's just been too much complacency in the sport lately. I see people gear up and not doing gear checks, hopping on the load, riding all the way out, and exiting without doing a gear check...while these accidents weren't really related to a packing malfunction necessarily, it's just a good example of how complacent people seem to be getting.

it takes 5 seconds to do a gear and pin check. It takes a few seconds to think of your EPs and go over it a few times in your head before a jump. I'm shocked to hear about so many low cut-aways because people lost track of time and altitude.

We all know there is a temporal loss effect that can happen when adrenaline starts pumping and panic starts kicking in...but I can't help believe that those that practice their EPs and stay altitude aware survive malfunctions more than those that cut corners and view skydiving as a safe activity. It is absolutely inherently dangerous and I think jumpers need to pull their heads out of their asses, and start taking it more seriously out there. People are dying that don't need to! Lets be safe out there people!

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Skydiving is inherently dangerous. It always has been. It is also a sport of composure. I believe the difference between then and now is that the gear has become so good and so reliable, that one's ability to stay composed when things start to really unravel is not tested until much further along in their skydiving careers. People still quit skydiving when they discover their limits, they just get many more jumps under their belt before this happens and so it appears to be less dangerous. It still comes down to the same thing...there is a planet coming at you at 120mph, what are you going to do now?

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I do find myself shaking my head at those who say that this is a safe sport. Sorry, but the danger from the sport is about as in-your-face apparent as one can get. Skiing is dangerous - but the danger is mighty subtle. People don't stand on the top of ski slopes and say, "I'm a dead man until I save myself."

SCUBA is similar to that. Lots of very subtle ways to mess yourself up. No, you can't "just surface" a lot of the time unless you want to get a bit fizzy. But still, the danger is thought of as sharks, etc.

But what the hell strikes anybody about hanging on to the outside of an airplane at 13k feet as safe? What about exiting it? It is the danger that people like me crave. The thrill of it all.

Mike Truffer's incident is as much of an indication of the danger as anything. It's seems so shockingly arbitrary that we can be killed by a canopy deploying. Canopy doesn't open? You die. Canopy opens? That can kill you, too. Canopy opens fine? Most deaths occur under good canopies. Except when the reserve inadvertently deploys into a perfectly good canopy and makes it perfectly bad.

Safe sport? It's like saying heroin is safe because there's narcan.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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NWFlyer

at the end of A license training, even the best-trained, most aware student has probably only heard/absorbed a tiny portion of what he/she needs to know.

Now, if said person bothers to read the rest of the SIM (or similar documents in their home country), they'll learn a lot about advanced concepts. Some people put away the SIM and don't ever realize there's a lot more to learn from it that goes beyond the basics they need for their A. Some people might cram a little into their noggins to pass a written test for B, C, D... which I think is kind of missing the point.


>:( Pet peeve.
"What's a SIM?"
"All I need to know is what's on the license tests."
"It's too hard to read."
"It costs too much."
"It's only recommendations."
...etc., etc., etc.

We've heard it all....over and over and over again.
[:/]
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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the biggist offender is the one day jump course. You just can't teach enough to encounter every possible contingency!



You are correct. You can't teach enough to encounter every possible contingency, and a good instructor will be straight up about that from the start of the day. What you can do is teach enough for the student to make that one skydive safely. Then when they come back for another, you review what they should know and add a little more.

If you don't think this program is producing safe skydivers, what would you suggest instead?

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;)

Your quote:

"What you can do is teach enough for the student to make that one skydive safely. "


What I'm sayin is that what you just said is not possible.


This is my point and once this is understood by the jumping public / community this awarness will bring us all to a different place than the current state of affairs!

No money in AFF so all had better find other reasons for teaching, this is the biggist offender and cause of one day jump courses.

C
But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

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ChrisD

;)

Your quote:

"What you can do is teach enough for the student to make that one skydive safely. "


What I'm sayin is that what you just said is not possible.


This is my point and once this is understood by the jumping public / community this awarness will bring us all to a different place than the current state of affairs!

No money in AFF so all had better find other reasons for teaching, this is the biggist offender and cause of one day jump courses.

C



That's $kydiving! :)










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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airtwardo

***;)

Your quote:

"What you can do is teach enough for the student to make that one skydive safely. "


What I'm sayin is that what you just said is not possible.


This is my point and once this is understood by the jumping public / community this awarness will bring us all to a different place than the current state of affairs!

No money in AFF so all had better find other reasons for teaching, this is the biggist offender and cause of one day jump courses.

C



That's $kydiving! :)

Yup! Unfortunately, those big aluminum tin cans with the the turbine whirrlies are expensive to opperate. :)
Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

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I get sooo tired of people at the DZ tryng to tell themselves and others that the drive out is more dangerous than the dive out!



i believe whole heartedly that the drive to the DZ is infinitely more dangerous.

i have no control over people on the road.

what i do have control over is: who i jump with, conditions, skill level, comfort level, and gear. if something goes to hell in a handbasket, i have no one but myself to blame.

for years i jumped without an aad or rsl, the decision was a conscious one based on my desire to be in total control of any situation. it made sense at the time.

gradually found myself adding these safety features back into my rig. rsl and aad. i can always turn off or disengage if a situation warrants it.

it seems to me that the more jumps you have the more complacent you become, to wit, the ridiculous % of fatalities by experienced jumpers. this percentage should be less than zero depending on how much of a % you want to give "shit happens".

shit doesn't happen very often.

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i believe whole heartedly that the drive to the DZ is infinitely more dangerous.



I know I should just let this go because it will inevitably lead to a discussion on the meaning of statistics and how they are calculated. But I will point out two things. Firstly, Wendy disagreed with this in her OP, and as far as I have seen she is always correct. (Wendy, if you are getting tired of me saying this let me know and I will stop. But I do truly mean it.) Secondly I would simply ask you how many jumpers do you personally know who have been killed or injured driving to the DZ versus those who have come to misfortune as the result of a skydive gone wrong?

I also currently jump with no AAD or RSL in my personal gear. And I drive a truck long distance for a living, about 70 hours every 2 weeks. I am under no illusions which of these activities is more likely to lead to my death.
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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gowlerk

Yes Wendy, as usual you are correct. I get sooo tired of people at the DZ tryng to tell themselves and others that the drive out is more dangerous than the dive out!



Depends in which country you drive to the DZ B|
You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

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>:(

Spot on Pops!

I cannot stand that one.

I wasn't much of a reader at all as a kid either, however, developed a love for it later on.

Either way though, in a sport / activity where knowledge is paramount to survival, as well as a real enjoyment of the sport, how the HELL could you not read everything you can get your hands on about it?

Blows my mind, completely...

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I've wondering about this myself, and I've thought about doing some statistical analysis on this matter.

People keep comparing apples to oranges when it comes to comparing skydiving to other activities. They’ll say something like 1 in so many drivers die a year driving, but only 1 in so many skydives results in a fatality. As someone with a statistics background, this sort of analysis makes me cringe. I’ve considered compiling the data myself. I think the best way to go about this is to compare fatalities per hours of involvement in the activity.

For example, it may be that there is one driving fatality per 100,000 hours of driving, but there may be 1 fatality per 1,000 hours of skydiving (this would include the ride to altitude, freefall, and time under canopy). In this example, I think it would be safe to say that skydiving is 100 times more dangerous than driving.

Just a thought.

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GatorNation

I've wondering about this myself, and I've thought about doing some statistical analysis on this matter.

People keep comparing apples to oranges when it comes to comparing skydiving to other activities. They’ll say something like 1 in so many drivers die a year driving, but only 1 in so many skydives results in a fatality. As someone with a statistics background, this sort of analysis makes me cringe. I’ve considered compiling the data myself. I think the best way to go about this is to compare fatalities per hours of involvement in the activity.

For example, it may be that there is one driving fatality per 100,000 hours of driving, but there may be 1 fatality per 1,000 hours of skydiving (this would include the ride to altitude, freefall, and time under canopy). In this example, I think it would be safe to say that skydiving is 100 times more dangerous than driving.

Just a thought.



Let's say you just want to use the US as your data set.

Data on the total number of fatalities is relatively easy to come by - since almost all make the news these days, you could probably compile a pretty complete list of US skydiving fatalities using the data here and the data collected by USPA.

Your challenge is going to be getting good data on the total number of jumps. USPA doesn't really know it. You could try to survey every dropzone in the country, but many consider that proprietary information and wouldn't share it.

Even if you could get good data, there's lots of different ways to slice and dice it, which could lead you to different conclusions. For example, do you include tandem jumps or exclude them? Including them would vastly increase your denominator of total number of jumps, and also vastly decrease your numerator of number of fatalities (I'm guessing here based on the general trend of a 0 to very small number of tandem fatalities each year for the several years I've been involved in the sport).

Do you include or exclude aircraft related fatalities? Is death the only way to measure danger, or do you try to count serious injury? What's your line for "serious injury?"

The best analysis I've seen comes out of Skydive Arizona. It's one of the largest (if not the largest) DZs in the world, and Bryan Burke (who is a total numbers geek) tracks fatalities, injuries, and close calls, and regularly (annually, I think) writes up reports on what they're seeing each year, and the trends.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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