Question about causes of accidents

[EricGleason 0]

I'm curious to know if most accidents in skydiving happen because of "pilot error" the way they do in aviation.

This is on my mind tonight since I just completed a safety seminar focusing on some crashes, and we were reminded that almost every crash was because of a pilot overestimating their skill, hot-dogging and screwing up, poor decision-making, or something along those lines. It almost never happens that a plane crashes because of something hidden that the pilot shouldn't have known about (at least in General Aviation).

Is it the same way in skydiving? The inherent risks are obvious, but it seems that so much is done to prevent accidents that there are few causes of accidents that can't be controlled.

[AFFI 0]

Wondering what your experience level is, like how many jumps do you have?

[stitch 0]

I can understand your concern, but I don't believe this guy is a troll.His posts in "Skydiving history" seem to verify this.I just think he is curious.

"No cookies for you"- GFD
"I don't think I like the sound of that" ~ MB65
Don't be a "Racer Hater"

[AFFI 0]

http://dropzone.com/fatalities/

Seems to be operator error the vast majority of the time.

[wmw999 2,452]

I'll bite.

Saying "pilot error" can be a comfortable way to say "I'd sure never make that mistake." Probably much like in piloting airplanes. And it's not a good way to look at things.

There are errors involved. Most of the time, some of the errors are early (much like the error of a VFR-rated pilot going up in near-IFR conditions), and some are late.

But they involve making real-time decisions that have no opportunity to be fixed if you make the wrong one. So, as a skydiver, the more real-time situations you have thought about, and the fewer early errors you make, the smaller the set of opportunities you have to make those errors.

We can all make fatal mistakes, or get caught in situations that we're just not equipped to handle at that particular moment.

Wendy W.

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)

[EricGleason 0]

My apologies if my post made you think I was a troll. I'm an absolute newbie to this sport and really am curious. Like I said in another post, I spent a lot of time at the Hinckley DZ as a young kid, but after my dad stopped flying we drifted away from that scene. So all of my direct exposure to the sport is clouded by virtue of being 25 year old childhood memories.

A while back I got to thinking more about aviation safety and made a decision that I am not going to die in an airplane I'm flying. Just ain't gonna happen. I don't fly conservatively or sometimes even with a large margin of error, but unless I am 100% positive of the ability of my equipment and my self to complete a flight or manuever, I don't do it. And I train a lot.

I'm kind of wondering if one can become proficient enough at skydiving to make that same sort of decision. Browsing through the Fatalities forum, it does seem that most accidents are caused by a bad decision (or string of them). There are a couple of incidents I noticed where one person's mistakes caused the injury or death of an innocent and unsuspecting victim who was probably doing everything right (Roger Nelson's fatal accident comes to mind), though one could argue that if you're not 100% confident in the ability of those you're jumping with not to kill you, you probably shouldn't jump with them. It's the same reason why I choose not to fly with certain pilots, or ocassionally even in the same vicinity as other pilots.

It's also the reason why I've ruled out a local DZ, even though the owner and I have many mutual acquaintances (going all the way back to my parents' days at Hinckley) and I'm sure he'd give me a good deal. One look around the training facility and equipment made it pretty clear to me that they are not interested in good training and safety. The airplanes even seemed to be in poor shape for jump planes. There is no doubt in my mind that the likelihood of an accident is much higher there than at other places, and to avoid being the victim of it I"m going elsewhere.

[EricGleason 0]

Someone asked privately what DZ I referred to, thinking that it was a Chicago-area one. I've moved to upstate New York now and was referring to one local to me now, not any of the Chicago area DZs.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

Is it the same way in skydiving? The inherent risks are obvious, but it seems that so much is done to prevent accidents that there are few causes of accidents that can't be controlled.

Nearly all skydiving injuries and fatalities come from pilot error.

Ocassionally we learn something new about how equipment can fail. A few years ago we learned that we needed to build up the material arround gromets to prevent snags with micro-line.

And sometimes things just happen, like dust devils, an airplane pilot not seeing a jumper under canopy, etc.

[tbrown 26]

Also, as with aircraft accidents, skydiving accidents are usually the result of a cascading effect. There are many small factors, perhaps involving human error, others involving equipment, aircraft, other people on the jump, weather conditions, etc. None of them in and of themselves necessarily result in a catastrophic accident, but enough of the wrong things happen at the wrong time that they can come together very suddenly and make for a unique and unfortunate situation.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[kenneth21441 0]

Accidents just do not happen as there are factors that come about with these.

If you recall the 28th of Jan 1986 when the shuttle blew up after launch.

It was not just one factor but many;

O-rings, being cold out, design, etc...

So this being the case.
Skydiving accidents happen due to several factors. So lot of people want to just say pilot error when it can be other factors.

My last malfnction report while in the Army went like this:

a jumper died and was found 3 hours after the operation.

First thing was that one door was broke so the jumpers had let one pass through then the jumpers moved to the other side and jumped.
There was a door bundle that you need to give a 3 sec. time to release before a jumper goes.

Jumper was 200 lbs + including weight of ruck sack 60 lbs and his M-60 another 30 lbs.
Jumper exited in a dive out and his ruck sack was not secured with the single point release running around his leg.

In the end the jumper had 14 line twist when the NCO's found him. So that 28ft dia parachute was now much smaller and with that weight he was moving.
]
Jumper broke both of his femurs etc.. You get the point.

Well the blame came down to the Jumpmaster team for moving the jumpers against what was planned and trained for.
Not having the equipment (ruck) secured.
DZ party for waiting so long to begin a search for the missing jumper etc...


So accidents do not just happen.

We try all that we can to prevent them but that is the nature of the beast in a way of saying,.

Kenneth Potter
FAA Senior Parachute Rigger
Tactical Delivery Instructor (Jeddah, KSA)
FFL Gunsmith

[lawrocket 3]

There is extremely little in terms of any "accident" or "incident" that does not occur due to human error. Packing error, errors with AAD's, loss of altitude awareness, poor body position, poor deployment, misjudgment of canopy skills, misjudgment of winds, etc. You name it.

You can often find a series of small errors that cause incidents to occur. Example, "A poor spot, tried to make it back to DZ, panic turn to avoid obstacle, fractured femur."

Normally you can say, "Problem 1 was the spot." But that could have been rectified if jumper dumped high. Even with the standard deployment, jumper bypassed a nice open field to make it back. That kind of stuff.

Of course, some incidents are bizarre and leave very few lessons learned, but those are few and far between.

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