Indoor Skydiving: Skydiving Statistics - What's it All About?

Skydiving, like all other adventure sports, has its share of accidents and fatalities. There is no adventure without any inherent risks. But with the development of modern protective gear for this adventure sport, the probability of risk has been reduced considerably. Nowadays, there are indoor facilities for beginner skydivers. They can learn the basic aspects of the adventure sport and then venture out to the open skies. As a result of these improvements, skydiving statistics dealing with the accidents and fatalities provide a brighter picture now.

Skydiving instructors often say that the risk associated with the sport can be minimized if one stays within the prescribed limits and follows the instructions carefully. A majority of the accidents are caused by the recklessness of the divers and the malfunctioning of the diving equipment. But the technological advances in manufacturing diving gear have more or less eliminated the malfunctioning of the equipment. So, the skydiving statistics look impressive in terms of low risk compared with the statistics of some other adventure sports.

The following is an oft-quoted skydiving statistics that is excerpted from the sixth edition of the famous book, Parachuting: A Skydiver' Handbook, written by Dan Poynter. In 1987, from about 110000 people participated in skydiving, 29 people were killed. It is estimated that each participant made an average of about 200 jumps per year. That means the rate of accident deaths in skydiving is one in 3800 divers. Or it can be put as one in every 76000 jumps. This is a statistics taken about 20 years earlier. It is quite logical to conclude that the accident rate and fatality rate would be considerably reduced because of the technological advances made in manufacturing diving gear at present.

In another survey, the fatality rates of other activities were compared with that of skydiving. It was found that the fatality rates of other, more regular incidents such as highway accidents (43990 people), drowning (1171 people), and airline accidents (1399 people) were much higher than that of skydiving. But one has to keep in mind that a very large number of people undertake the activities such as road travel and air travel. So the number of fatalities will naturally be higher. But what one needs to understand from the skydiving statistics is that the fatality rate of skydiving is not frighteningly high.

Other than the technological advances, another factor plays an important role in brightening the skydiving statistics. Since this is known as an extremely adventurous sport, the participants exhibit extreme care and caution while indulging in the sport. They train and practice well and religiously carry out the instructions. These days, it can be safely declare that if one dives carefully and follows the instructions correctly, there is near-zero chances of an accident occurring in skydiving.

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