The Risk of Skydiving
SKYDIVE
Fido-To: dave appel
Your postings concerning the student fatality were great. A large segment
of the skydiving population have trouble understanding fatalities so we
can see how much more difficult it is for a grieving non-jumper. As the
stats go, skydiving is not excessively dangerous. I was the main
statistical researcher for USPA during the 1980s and can shed some light
on some of the recent discussions. Most figures on other activities come
from the National Safety Council. Their figures on recreational
activities come from the activity itself for sports with a relatively low
participation ratio. The random samplew emergency rooms for common
activities. Skydiving's figures come from our accurate count of
fatalities and from a variety of surveys of drop zone training and
jumping activities. These figures correlate well with USPA membership
provided figures. There are about 20K to 25K non-student jumpers during
any year in the US. About 90K students are trained each year, the make an
average of just under 3 jumps each. Since every participant is at risk,
every participant is factored in the calculations. This is how other
activities' rates are figured too. We experience a fatality about once
per 80K jumps. Each year, about one out of each 3300 participants dies
skydiving. Just a few years ago, PARACHUTIST carried a more detailed
article for those who are interested in break downs by experience level.
We also have these figures for countries all around the world. The US has
one of the better records. I used to give these figures to the news media
on an almost daily basis; I answered many other individual requests from
those wanting to know how dangerous our sport is. The view I always
explain is that Skydiving is statistically safe compared to life in
general, but skydiving is not a game of chance. Skydiving safety depends
on the individual, it is very safe for some, dangerous for others. Less
than 5% of skydiving fatalities are out of the control of the individual.
Only one person could have prevented most of them and that is the person
who died. The accidental death rate in the US is about one person per
2400 people. Being in an auto is safer than skydiving unless you are in
the 16 to 24 year old age group and than it is more dangerous. The most
dangerous activity of all is life, it has a 100% mortality rate. I think
it is more comforting to know that my friends who died skydiving went out
doing something they enjoyed. It helps us to realize that non-jumpers
will always have trouble understanding because they see skydiving as
something foolhardy while they willingly will accept a higher risk factor
in a common (read sensible) activity. When someone dies skydiving, it
just proves they were right, when someone dies doing something else, it
is unfortunate. By the way, Malfunctions occur once out of about 750
jumps (that is reserve rides). Tandem malfunction rates are normal
without the drogue, but drop to about 1:300 with the drogue. Tandem
fatality rates are considerably better than static line rates for the
student (not the instructor). The previous discussion compared world-wide
tandem fatalities with US activity rates. Nevertheless, tandem can be
improved a lot.
Mike Johnston
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