almost one person a day

[Darryn 0]

has anyone else added up the fatalities yet this year? If my numbers are right it is 10. This is very sad, that is almost 1 person a day this year. My heart goes out to all family and friends.

[cocheese 0]

There will be one every 2 weeks or less. Just don't let it be you or someone you know.

[rsmn17 0]

I'm new to skydiving...is it normally this way?

[AggieDave 6]

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I'm new to skydiving...is it normally this way?

Yes and no, atleast in my experience. It seems that we see a rash of fatalities at a time, then it slacks off for a bit of time, then comes back on again. It also seems like the past few years we start the year and season with fear due to the seemingly high number of fatalities then the year wraps up with a fairly "normal" number of fatalities. Atleast that's how it has been in the past 5 years that I've been in the sport and in the US.

I'm not trying to tell you that Skydiving is a "safe" sport, it definately isn't, but you can take steps to help reduce your personal risk, but you will never make it a 100% safe sport. People just have to look at the risks and decide if its something they're willing to do.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[upndownshop 0]

yup, and come March and April they will go up again.

[NWFlyer 2]

Not a great start to the year, to be sure, but we also had the statistical anomaly of an aircraft accident, which took five lives at once.

It'll be interesting to see how this year plays out. I'm hopeful that it's just an early-year blip and it settles out through the year.

[tombuch 0]

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I'm new to skydiving...is it normally this way?

Probably yes, sort of no.

In the United States we can usually expect about 30 fatalities per year, that's just over one every two weeks. In fact over the last 10 years (1995-2004) there have been 315 domestic US fatalities, that's 31.5 per year. In terms of USPA membership, that comes to 1 fatality for every 1,045 members per year.

Fatalities tend to cluster around points of high activity, and points where non-current jumpers return to the sport. January closes out the Christmas boogie season, and many northern jumpers who have been idle travel south for a few jumps, so we may see a slight bump. There will be another bump at the beginning of the northern season, and another bump as the summer boogie season heats up.

What you are seeing reported here on dropzone.com is a worldwide fatality listing, so there will be more than what we have in any one country. The other thing that is happening is that as dropzone.com becomes more popular, we see more fatalities reported here.

So, yes, there are lots of fatalities, and yes, the reports of fatalities are increasing, but actual fatality rates (domestically and worldwide) are pretty stable or decreasing slightly.
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[The111 1]

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In the United States we can usually expect about 30 fatalities per year, that's just over one per week.

Sorry to nitpick, but those numbers don't quite add up. More like "just over one per two weeks."

A shame either way.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[tombuch 0]

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In the United States we can usually expect about 30 fatalities per year, that's just over one per week.

Sorry to nitpick, but those numbers don't quite add up. More like "just over one per two weeks."

A shame either way.

Very true, my mistake. It's been corrected in the original post. Thanks for the point out.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy