New to skydiving or still a student? If you want the 'insider view' before you make your first jump, or perhaps you're a student who wants to improve your personal performance in skydiving, this article discusses risk in skydiving you a clear picture of the issues from people who have been teaching the sport for many years. While we're here, lets also consider the effects of anxiety. Lets also be clear that this article  is focussed entirely on the student system and not on advanced techniques, which require a wider set of risk assessment parameters.

Is it ever 'safe’ to make a skydive?

Quantitative Vs Qualitative approaches.

How can we rationalise our ‘normal’ life against taking part in some hazardous activity or sport? Most people do this by looking at statistics and trying to quantify the risk in terms of numbers and those numbers help us to make the decision in our own minds 'is it safe to make a live free fall parachute jump?'. When used in this way, those numbers alone are virtually useless unless we have some frame of reference for other activities which we consider 'normal'.  Sure, you want the numbers anyway because it helps you to feel that you are making a rational decision and so we'll give them to you here.

Well, is it safe?

No, of course not. Nothing is ever really safe is it? Everything has some level of hazard and the decision to be made is ‘how much risk are you personally prepared to accept’? Aviation sports are almost all considered ‘hazardous’. Considering the different methods of free fall parachuting, and it could be argued that tandem with an injury rate₁ of approx 1.54 per 1000 (one thousand) jumps is marginally safer for first timers than the other methods simply because the instructor is in direct control of the whole process. Fatalities for tandems currently stand at 0.4 per 100,000 (one hundred thousand) jumps. Indoor ‘bodyflying’ could be considered still safer and there are no published statistics for this as yet, although when there are you'll see them here.

Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) is higher at approx 5 (five) per 1000 (one thousand) jumps although you should consider that this averaged-out figure starts at 4 (four) per 1000 (one thousand) jumps for men, up to  (eight) per 1000 for women. There is no established fatality rate for this method as yet.

If you decide to make your first jump using the static line system, which incidentally uses the same kind of parachutes and the same landing procedures and drills as does accelerated freefall, the injury rate is slightly higher at 6 (six) per 1000 and ranges from 5 (five) for men to 10 (ten) for women. The fatality figures are about 2-3 per 100,000 in this category.

New technology in parachuting and freefall improves safety

If you did your jumps twenty years ago, maybe even ten in some places, you probably used a round parachute which was most likely some kind of government surplus parachute which had been used to deliver troops into combat or save the lives of pilots who ejected from fast jets. To land these without injury you needed to do an excellent parachute landing fall or 'PLF. If you messed up on that PLF you stood a chance of hurting your leg or ankle and maybe even breaking it. The square parachutes in use today are big, docile and put you down quite softly - providing you pull down on the toggles at the right time. We also back this up with a radio to remind you. But of course, you do need to do as you are advised. 

So if you're a parent who had a hard landing twenty years ago and really knows best and want to use this article to stop your little girl or boy from jumping, then firstly take a look at how things have changed in the parachutes.  

The role of skydiving regulators in personal risk management

Skydiving is a high risk sport and so each and every one of us needs to recognise that fact and deal with it for ourselves. Lets also keep it in perspective - driving on the road is a high risk activity yet many of us don't acknowledge it as such and most of us couldn't do without driving. The issue then is about effective risk management, and the possibility of abstaining completely must always be on your list of options (your option list definitely, but not mine). When you carry out your own evaluation of a drop zone before you decide to book, that’s part of your own personal risk assessment and you are responsible for your own safety and also for that of others. The BPA (British Parachute Association) acts as a representative body, which also has a leading role in managing the safety record and reducing the risk of those taking part. The USPA (United States Parachute Association) fullfills the same role in the US. They both do a great job and the safety record continues to improve overall.

The BPA fulfils a number of functions including (but not limited to) the following;

All UK drop zones today are affiliated to the BPA and in order to maintain this link, each has to manage its operations according to the BPA Operations Manual. This manual represents a constantly evolving set of regulations which govern every aspect of the sport. The BPA is licensed by the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) to supervise and administer the sport of parachuting and skydiving in UK. The safety and training committee (STC) meets regularly to discuss and advance (to police?) the safety and training in the sport and it consists of all Club Chief Instructors (CCIs) and it is Chaired by the BPA Technical Officer. This committee appoints boards of inquiry as necessary and discusses all matters and makes adjustments to the existing procedures to minimise the chance of bad things happening again. Every time something has gone wrong in the sport over the past 30 years or more, the knowledge accumulated from the investigation has moved the sport further and we have learned from our ‘mistakes’. It works well, although nobody would ever claim it to be perfect.

Risk - the skydivers perspective

Admitting we are afraid to skydive and the effects of time

I’ve met people who keep on analysing, over and over, deeper and deeper.It may well be that they were looking for a way-out, a reason to not go and do the thing they want to do. Brian Tracey calls it "I want to but I can't".

Sometimes we can go too far in the risk analysis and it’s possible that we simply have an irrational fear of skydiving.

Irrational do I hear you say? Yes, it’s all relative in the context of personal choice so just stay with me on the argument! Maybe ‘morbid’ is a better word in this context. Morbid fears tend to lead to increased anxiety in certain situations. Maybe we’re getting into the area of what many would recognise as a ‘phobia’. Lets call this 'anxiety'and there is an article on anxiety in skydiving which may be of help with this.

The main reason I started skydiving was because I wanted to overcome an irrational fear of heights which I had as a child. Once I started to get into the sport angle, it just sort of carried on. Sometimes its useful to know you're suffering from a morbid fear ( I reckon I was).

There is nothing wrong at all with admitting we are fearful of making a skydive, what is inexcusable however, is deriding or ridiculing those who try their best to overcome their fears and in so doing achieve much more than they ever knew they could. There are those loud and aggressive people out there who make up loud arguments about why ‘it’s stupid to do x or y or z’ usually those with the biggest mouths have the ‘youngest spirits’ (I’m being kind here). They purport to being the voice of reason when in fact they are actually the voice of fear and anxiety. 

If you are fearful or afraid and yet you make your skydive, then by the pure act of overcoming your fear, you have demonstrated courage. This is an old word and in my view it’s not used enough, but by being afraid and doing it anyway, you are by this definition courageous.

If you are afraid to skydive and you don’t do it, then arguably you are ‘courageously challenged ’. That’s OK, and skydivers as a whole know that this sport is not for everyone and we don't think any less of anyone just because they can't bring themselves to participate. We understand that there are things which we won'y be able to do and which you would be very happy with. The phrase is 'horses for courses'  just don’t go and badmouth those who did jump and use that to make excuses for yourself. We hear this all the time - people vehemently arguing against the sport - sheesh! 'get a life'.

Better by far to be honest and truthful about our decision and say ‘I was just too afraid to do it on the day – maybe some other time’. Always put a timestamp on strong statements like this, because they have a strange way of changing over time. Skydivers know this, and if you hang around a skydiving bar or canteen for long enough you'll hear lots of skydivers of different shapes and flavours saying something along the lines of "I bottled out of that". Why are skydivers not afraid to admit they avoided doing something because they were afraid? because they have also been trained to enhance their levels of judgement and they have a strong feeling when something is pushing it just a little too far. You could also say that they have less to prove.

For a long time I admitted freely that I couldn’t stand football and that I couldn’t understand what it was all about. Then I had a son (I had some help with that) who is absolutely mad about soccer (playing and watching). What had I done wrong? After the initial guilt trip about ‘what have I done to bring him up so badly ’  I decided to learn a bit to follow him around and support him at his matches.

Argue for your limitations…. and sure enough, they’re yours

_{Richard Bach, Illusions}

I go to my sons football matches every chance I get (eek, Saturdays are only for skydiving aren’t they?) I’ve stopped short of doing the Linesman or Coaches courses, but I’ve changed my perspective and I’ve actually learned how to enjoy something that I ‘hated’ to start off with. It happened to me when I stopped arguing for my own limitations (well, one of them anyway).

If we are afraid to skydive today – that’s OK. We should just say that, quietly and honestly and if we change someday, c’est la vie and if we don’t, well that’s OK too. There are lots of other things to do with this life.

It’s your decision

You may be ready to make a decision or you may not. If not, then I hope you’ll bookmark this page and come back to it at some point in future. Perhaps you may have some perspectives to add to this discussion. If you're still concerned and want more data, well I've tried to avoid becoming a  data depository in this guide, however I do know that many of you want to quantify the level of risks and therefore I'll add useful references as I find them. These stats are provided by the British Parachute Association and therefore can be considered pretty reliable. 

The lowest risk option in skydiving

If you decide, having reconsidered this discussion of risk that you still like the idea of free fall, and perhaps with reduced risk (there is risk in getting out of bed, or even staying in it….) then perhaps you might consider Indoor Skydiving in a wind tunnel as a realistic option. It’s terrific fun. My kids loved it and so do I. I haven’t yet met anyone who didn’t.

A step-up the risk continuum

If you are ready to make a skydive but not ready for the full licencing course, then tandem might well be your best option.

Are you ready to take control?

If you can accept the risks, and are willing to accept responsibility for learning how to manage your environment intelligently then you may well be suited to accelerated free fall.

_{1. Injury statistics are taken from current data provided by the British Parachute Association (BPA).}