> According to its data, there were 10 fatalities out of an estimated 3.65 million jumps in 2023
So, among the USPA's membership, there's a ~3 * 10^-6 chance of death per jump, which is basically compatible with how it had been described to me in the past: ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy, times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy, times a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff.
At $10M statistical life in the US, that's $30 per jump, which is less than, but not vastly less than, the price of the jump itself. It seems quite plausible that the jump centers that are not members of the USPA have higher risk, which could start too look overly risky (in the specific sense that consumers would be much less likely to participate if they had access to the figures). But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk.
I wish these sorts of discussions would focus more on the numbers and making sure the risks are tracked and public.
The article also gives reason to be skeptical of the quoted "10 fatalities out of an estimated 3.65 million jumps in 2023". If we count 28 known fatalities at this one facility from 1983 to 2021, we get around 0.75 fatalities per year.
In other words, we would expect that 14 facilities of similar death counts to the one in the article would equal the total US fatalities for a year. The USPA dropzone locator [1] lists 142 facilities, so if we take everything at face value then this facility is ~10x worse than the average for USPA members.
> But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk
In this case at least, it seems that this specific facility is higher risk than that. And with a lack of legally mandated reporting requirements, I'd say the onus is on a facility to prove safety once it's averaging a death every 1.3 years.
> so if we take everything at face value then this facility is ~10x worse than the average for USPA members.
The issue is that I would expect at least a factor of 10 typical variation in the number of yearly jumps done at different facilities, so it’s hard to conclude anything without getting at least a rough guess of how many jumps they are doing. (The article correctly notes that the inability to find this number publicly is a real problem.)
Yes, but those statistics are only for USPA members. They don't include the more sketchy places like the skydiving center the article is talking about.
So it seems the lesson here is to make sure you only jump at places that are part of the USPA.
> ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy
Yes
> times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy
No. There is way smaller chance that your reserve would not deploy, not even to M, but MM. I think there were some stories about fatalities caused by this. The one issue I remember - there was a gear issue in a condition, when a skydiver is passed out and on his back - AAD (Automatic Activation Device) fired at 1000 feet, and the reserve did not open in time. I am not sure if that was a fatality or not. But all the containers of this type went through modification.
Main does not open because they are packed by skydivers or packers in 5–10 minutes (or 30-60 if you are new). So you can skip the step, or do it not correctly, or forget something. Reserves are packed by FAA certified riggers and it takes at least an hour to pack the reserve. Reserves are packed similar to BASE canopies (where there is only one canopy, and it has to open).
> a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff
That is a big factor. Similar to car drivers, some skydivers just feel too confident at the beginning of their career and start doing low, high-performance turns. And obviously, there are some other various factors - weather, other skydivers, other people, and own mistakes.
> No. There is way smaller chance that your reserve would not deploy, not even to M, but MM.
Thanks. Do you have a cite on this? I am pretty skeptical of any complicated mechanical system (including not just the packed suit, but also the calibrated altimeter, etc) having a 10^-6 malfunction rate. Like, I would consider having the altimeter mistakenly calibrated to lower elevation a case of “the reserve failing to deploy” even if it was packed perfectly or whatever. Likewise if your main deploys wonky, you cut it and get into a spin, and then reserve gets tangled as it comes out.
I mean maybe I overshoot a little with millions. But it is a known to have one cutaway (main malfunction) in around 1000 jumps. But giving the same for reserves is just not fair.
BASE canopies are packed the same way as Reserve canopies. And there are people with over 4500 BASE jumps in their lifetime. Reserve canopies are not the same as main, with different characteristics. Even opening them in a spin gets you a flying canopy that is hard to control, but probably will save your life. And there are also all depends on the type of your main canopy, if we talk about Tandem or Student canopies - those spins aren’t going to affect that much reserve opening. The high performance canopies will, but a lot of jumpers don’t jump with anything that can deploy their reserves automatically, preventing this issue of high spins and deployment of the reserve. And instead trying to stabilize the body position.
Unfortunately nobody has a data about how many reserve rides there are, and how many were unsuccessful. I mean it is possible to find recently unsuccessful, if there are any, guess how many jumps are there in general, and guess that every 1000 jumps there were at least one reserve ride. So some stats can be done on that. But based on your logic out of 3M jumps a year in USA we should have seen 3 fatalities caused by not opened reserve.
Also seems like you are combining reserve and aad into one system, which is not correct. The idea behind the reserves, that in most cases it will be manually deployed. And for the cases when the pilot is unconscious there is AAD the purpose of which purely try to save a life, with just one manufacturer it is known that it saved more than 5000 lives https://www.cypres.aero/info/saves/
So, among the USPA's membership, there's a ~3 * 10^-6 chance of death per jump, which is basically compatible with how it had been described to me in the past: ~1/1000 chance that your main chute doesn't deploy, times a ~1/1000 chance that the reserve doesn't deploy, times a small factor because people (especially beginners) do dumb stuff.
At $10M statistical life in the US, that's $30 per jump, which is less than, but not vastly less than, the price of the jump itself. It seems quite plausible that the jump centers that are not members of the USPA have higher risk, which could start too look overly risky (in the specific sense that consumers would be much less likely to participate if they had access to the figures). But I'd bet it's less than $200/jump worth of risk.
I wish these sorts of discussions would focus more on the numbers and making sure the risks are tracked and public.