Anyone want to help defend the (relative) safety of our sport?

[opurt 0]

My $0.02 regarding the risk of skydiving versus the risk of driving:

In order to compare two things, you must use a meaningful common unit of measurement.

For example, to compare how loud two car stereos are, you compare how many decibels each puts out. Comparing the number of speakers of one system to the wattage of another won't let you know how relatively loud they are. You determine the maximum number of decibels each puts out and compare those. Decibels are the common unit.

To compare skydiving risks to driving risks, a meaningful common unit is "fatalities per million hours" (FPMH). This is how many fatalities occur per million hours of the activity.

The fatality rate per 100 million miles driven in the US in 2003 is 1.5 (reference - second paragraph) . Assuming an average speed of 50 miles per hour, the hours driven are 2 million (100 million miles divided by 50 miles per hour). Thus, per million hours, the fatality rate is .8 fatalities per million hours (I know, the average speed seems rather high, but more on this later).

For skydiving, the number I've seen bandied about is 3.3 million skydives a year. Each skydive starts when the skydiver dismounts the aircraft at altitude and ends when the skydiver is on the ground and his canopy has collapsed. Aircraft accidents would fall under general aviation incidents, just as car accidents driving to/from the DZ would fall under automobile incidents. A minute of freefall plus say, seven minutes under canopy. Eight minutes per skydive times 3.3 million skydives is 440,000 hours of skydiving a year. For 2003, there were 24 fatalities per 440,000 hours. This extrapolates to 55 fatalities per million hours. (Fatality data comes from skydivingfatalities.info. I couldn't find the USPA link for the number of skydives per year but have seen the number referenced several times).

55 FPMH for skydiving versus .8 FPMH for driving.

What about tandems? Over the past 4 years (2000-2003), there have been three tandem fatalities. It seems to me that tandems have similar risk factors as solo skydives so I'm not breaking them out separately (more on that below). 3 fatalities over 4 years or 1,760,000 hours comes out to 1.7 FPMH. So tandems are about twice as dangerous as driving a car.

Interesting result.

Why is this? My conjecture is that tandems are related to solo skydives like small private plane aviation is related to commercial jet aviation. In tandems, you have an experienced, certified instructor who's primary goal (and job) is to get the passenger down safely. Plus there are multiple people in whose interest it is to see that the equipment is in top shape. Since the entire focus of a tandem is seeing that the passenger strapped to the instructor gets a taste of the sky and gets down in one piece, the actions taken before and during a tandem are oriented to that end and much less likely to result in injury or death.

Some notes:

a) Should tandems be broken out separately? The Strong site says a million tandems are done a year. I don't know the accuracy of that data. It would kick the tandem fatality up to about 1.9 FPMH over the 2000-2003 period (4 million tandems = 533,333 hours. 3 fatalities over 533K hours extrapolates to 1.9 fatalities per million hours).

b) I would be shocked to find out the average speed during those 100 million miles of driving is 50 miles per hour. I would guess that the speed is much lower, 20-30 mph, but I used 50 mph to maximize the FPMH rate for driving. Regardless, even with 50 mph, the relative risk between driving and skydiving is still clear. Drop the average speed 50 to 35 mph, and the driving FPMH drops to .5 FPMH. 55 FPMH versus .5 FPMH.

c) These numbers are not exact. But I think the methodology is generally sound - converting to FPMH and then comparing - and can yield some useful information about the relative risks of driving and skydiving.

Conclusion:

It seems to me that the skydiving risk level could be lowered to a low multiple of the risk from driving IF all skydivers were well trained, could react effectively in a malfunction and THE primary goal were to get down safely to the ground.

I guess everyone has to reach his or her own risk/reward equilibrium regarding what kind of risks they want to take in skydiving (and in life). It appears that the observation that "Skydiving is not safe. But it's sure as dangerous as you want it to be", is true.


- opurt

[Newbie 0]

the way i approach skydiving is how i approach life - it's impermanent. Always balance the risk against the benefit (i.e. if you are spending more time worrying about jumping than the level of enjoyment you get from it, you probably shouldn't be jumping.)

Never believe this is safe - as everyone else has said, you can do everything right and still die. It's a question of risk level though, and there is much you can do, read and practice to reduce risk level, and make your jumping safer. Also you are just starting out, and i was worried when i started too - i was probably worse than you are now - i used to get on a jump plane to do my AFF looking at people jumping out when we were on jump run, thinking "omfg what am i doing here?! These people are NUTS, they are jumping out of a plane, why am i here, i have to be crazy, i will never be like these f*&ing nut cases!"

Fast forward a few years and uhm, well...things change.

Just remember, take it slow, no need to rush anything, read lots, ask lots of questions from people who are experienced, understand what it is they are saying and why, and never let your ego (complacency) get the better of you (which it will try to if you stay in the sport even just a short while and start to get more confident).

Good luck with training and have fun!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Remster 30]

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Each skydive starts when the skydiver dismounts the aircraft at altitude and ends when the skydiver is on the ground and his canopy has collapsed.

I disagree. The skydive starts when you board the plane and ends when you step off the landing area.

Remster

[JohnnyRipcord 0]

Skydiving is not a safe sport. It is a dangerous sport that can be done safely.

It's a matter of Risk vs. Reward

When whuffos start in on the danger issue, my reply is: Give me your own risk tolerance. If you were going for a drive in the country, or doing any other non-essential activity, and you were able to know the risk factor (chance of death), what would be your risk cutoff? Most people throw out a number like 1:1000, or 1:10000.

I answer that with: Statistically, 1 out of every 100,000 skydives results in death. Since perhaps 1/2 of those are pilot error during an extreme maneuver (hook turns, etc), and I do not do such maneuvers, then statistically, my risk of death is about 1 in 200,000 every time I jump. That number suddenly sounds pretty safe to them. (Injuries are a whole other statistic). And since the reward portion of the equation is so great to a regular jumper, we can easily justify the risk to gain the reward. That equation differs for everyone, thus that is what each person needs to evaluate before deciding to jump.

Johnny

[headcase 0]

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I'm betting more people die each year as a result of obesity or unhealthy eating habits.

choking on food is the sixth leading cause of accidental death in the country. Because, according to the National Safety Council, nearly 2,500 persons die while dining each year, the café coronary outranks aircraft accidents, firearms, lightning and snakebite as a cause of death.

The food most responsible for death by choking is steak, according to a study by the office of New York's chief medical examiner; it accounts for some 90% of the fatalities.

[airdvr 210]

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Each skydive starts when the skydiver dismounts the aircraft at altitude and ends when the skydiver is on the ground and his canopy has collapsed.

I disagree. The skydive starts when you board the plane and ends when you step off the landing area.

I disagree with your disagreement. Lots of folks board airplanes every day. Very few leave them before they've reached the gate.

Now technically I know that getting on a plane wearing your rig presents some possibilities commercial flights lack but if you really want to be pristine with the data I think it starts at climbout.

The problem I have with the whole scenario is why are we trying to convince the world that it's safe to skydive? USPA had phenomenal growth in the '70's and '80's. I don't recall thinking to myself "This is a safe thing to do" when I took my FJC in 1981. It was an adventure. It was dangerous. My survival skills were being tested. I knew that if I fked up I could die and the sense of satisfaction and self confidence I got from it was life altering.

As I continued to learn it meant becoming part of a very select group of individuals who had the skill set to do something few people could do.

I think we actually do the sport a dis-service when we try to mainstream. Sorry, I'll step down from my soapbox now.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[headcase 0]

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I think we actually do the sport a dis-service when we try to mainstream.

So if you're feeling especially frisky mow some Angus or Kobe Beef on climb to altitude and leave the last slice for exit...headown.....in Texas......