Skydiving, is an inherently 'risky' sport although we know a lot about the factors which help to manage those risks. The internet encourages us to shop around for best deals and quite rightly so. ₁ You should however be aware that if you base your decisions on buying tandem and AFF courses purely on price could well damage your health and there is no governing body that is able to police the sale of these courses when you are outside of your home country unless they have an official affiliation from the governing body (BPA for example has just two). What does this mean in practice? Well, if you are a US citizen and you want to do a course while abroad in say Russian Federation or Spain or Thailand, and if something goes wrong (perhaps an injury) through negligence of your instructor, pilot or drop zone staff you will have little or no redress. If your instructor holds a USPA rating, it will give you a certain level of comfort that their ratings could be reviewed, possibly revoked and you may even be able to track them down and access their insurance to compensate you for your pain.

Skydiving is safer in your home country – almost always

On the other hand, making your skydive in your own home country opens the drop zone up to full review by the official governing bodies for skydiving so that any injuries (or worse) are fully investigated by the governing body for the sport. As an example, in UK that means that a board of inquiry is established of three Instructor Examiners who will get to the root cause of whatever happened and their results become public domain. If you were a UK resident and went to do your course in Spain at a non-BPA affiliated DZ, and then suffered some kind of injury there would be no specialist parachuting inquiry, and the local police would default to (most likely) simply say “hazardous sport activity gone wrong” or similar words. The main lesson here is that if instructors and staff can be held accountable then they are much less likely to take stupid risks and they will maintain their professional standards and will be less likely to ‘take the money and run’.

If however, your home country does not have a strong parachuting/aviation safety record then you may prefer to do your skydives in a country which has this, at least until you are properly licenced and experienced in skydiving.

Skydiving tragedy for us all to learn from

One of my AFF students went through her AFF training and graduated in UK. She had some medical problems (asthma mostly and also had reported physical assault on more than one occasion) she wasn’t physically strong in herself although she was hugely determined and a strong character, with an amazing sense of humour and a passion for life which was truly inspiring. Running her own business and with supportive parents who took care of her kids while she was jumping she moved slowly through the AFF progression system and the quality control in the BPA system helped to ensure that she stayed safe. After her AFF she wanted to complete her ten prescribed ‘consolidation’ skydives and start moving on to formation skydiving skills (FS1 certification). Because it was by now December and the UK weather had deteriorated, she asked me to come out to Spain to achieve these objectives. I agreed a custom one week course and she achieved her objectives very well indeed and her confidence and skills grew rapidly. She was no longer a student; however she was still an early stage jumper. Up until this point, many of the other instructors at that drop zone had been sceptical of her ability to graduate and it was delightful to see her prove them all wrong. So far, so good and she naturally ‘spread her wings’ and moved away from my supervision although we remained in contact as I did with many of my other AFF graduates.

Rapid skydiving progression, away from system supervision

She was interested in the free fly aspects of the sport and wanted to progress rapidly. Skydiving in Spain had intrigued her and she now planned to go to another drop zone in Spain and she was now starting to branch out by visiting drop zones with UK based friends, in this case a young Navy skydiver whose inexperience in skydiving was probably surpassed only by his emotional involvement with her. This drop zone recommended a free fly coach, who had no formal instructor or coach ratings and apparently he was a champion skydiver. This free fly coach, introduced by the drop zone gave her some tips and then took her up in the air to start her free fly training. The rest of the story becomes blurred (unlike every parachuting incident which has occurred under BPA investigation) All we know for sure is that the two of them had an in-air collision while he was teaching her free fly techniques. A professionally trained and licenced instructor would know how to deal with early stage skydivers and would ensure they made plenty of clear space between student and instructor during the ‘bottom end’ of the skydive while she was tracking away to a clear space of sky to open her parachute safely. The result of failing to work to a prescribed safety sequence was that in the mid-air collision he broke two legs and she died. His in-air camera was not held for the investigation as it would have been under BPA rules, and days later he flew back to Venezuela away from all legal scrutiny with plaster casts on his legs while she flew home in a coffin to her grieving family and friends.

Police investigations are limited by lack of specialists

The local Police did the best they could. They had no opportunity to call in BPA specialists to investigate the incident and saw this simply as a freefall collision that could happen anytime (misadventure?) and there was no possibility for any detailed technical investigation by the BPA because although she was a BPA member, she was jumping at a non BPA approved or affiliated drop zone and therefore this was out of jurisdiction. The Instructors running the drop zone in Spain were not licenced by the BPA and not much more could be done. None of the drop zone operators said a word and no official inquiry took place by any parachuting standard organisation. By contrast, during the murder investigation of Steve Hilder, the Uk Police co-opted two serving officers who were already highly experienced skydivers and skydivng instructors. 

Learning from this skydiving tragedy

The bottom line? Don’t become an unnecessary statistic. Don’t assume that because the people who operate your drop zone are English speaking that they have a strong safety record or that they are real BPA instructors. It may not be the case. Who has the final responsibility for your skydive? No, not your instructors, the answer is you.

Don’t make your decisions of which skydiving course to take, based purely on the lowest price. It could be the worst decision you ever made and you might not have the opportunity to personally regret it.

Don’t assume that the idea of ‘caveat vendor’ (seller beware) works when you are out of your home country. When travelling abroad always assume ‘caveat emptor’ (buyer beware). You’ll stay safer and lose less money.

Do carry out your six checks and manage the risks, don’t take unnecessary risks. Better still, stay under your home country system and use the quality assurance systems that it affords, and the legal pursuit it enables.

If you find a cut price skydiving deal on the internet, make sure that you don’t get cut price standards otherwise you may regret the decision for the rest of your life. If you plan a skydiving vacation, ideally use dropzones which bear some affiliation to one of the main governing bodies in skydiving. At a bare minimum, ensure that you use a properly qualified skydiving instructor/coach. Some of these are living in different countries and some you can hire specifically for a purpose and work with them again back in your home country. 

1. Commercial imperative

_{If/when ads do appear on this site, I’ll be doing my level best to ensure that those that do are not from the Drop Zones with poor safety records. When I do get around to covering the costs of the site with a few ads, if your own experience guides you that any DZs advertised here are not of the highest quality, I implore you to please blog it here and thus try to make sure that others do not suffer in the same way. If you can’t or won’t blog, please email the details to me, or if you prefer to Rick Boardman who operates a confidential and not for profit  ‘near miss’ reporting column writes which he writes for ‘Skydive’ Magazine, the Journal of the BPA.}