# Odds of dying during a skydive (well, more the landing, really) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 8, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420 "2010-06-08T13:57:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/21 "2010-06-09T17:32:23Z")
What are the chances of breaking a leg, or other significant injuries? I remember my brother telling me that the paratroopers he knew (he was in the Air Force) trained by walking off a second storey balcony, not something I would voluntarily do even when wearing parachute boots. (And why does the TSD spell-checker not accept the correct spelling of “storey”?) ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/22 "2010-06-09T18:00:56Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > What are the chances of breaking a leg, or other significant injuries? I remember my brother telling me that the paratroopers he knew (he was in the Air Force) trained by walking off a second storey balcony, not something I would voluntarily do even when wearing parachute boots. > > (And why does the TSD spell-checker not accept the correct spelling of “storey”?) if you screw up I suppose anything’s possible. When I did a static-line jump 15 years ago, my canopy was steerable via a handle above each shoulder: pull left handle to turn left, right handle to turn right. Pulling both handles was something akin to pulling back on the yoke of an airplane: the descent rate went to zero, and your forward speed started to decrease. If you “flare” like this at the right time just before you touch down, then your descent rate is very near zero when your feet touch the ground. [Click here,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4JIRW-3dPw) see jumper pull arms/handles down at 0:17, see gentle touchdown at 0:21. [another one:](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnLnH62qgik&feature=related) first jumper touches down rather firmly at 0:17, second jumper fares much better at 0:42. If you flare too soon, your canopy loses too much forward speed before you touch down; it can stall/collapse, and then you drop like a rock. If you’re more than a few feet off of the ground when this happens, that’s when you’ll break a leg. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/23 "2010-06-09T19:17:36Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > What are the chances of breaking a leg, or other significant injuries? I remember my brother telling me that the paratroopers he knew (he was in the Air Force) trained by walking off a second storey balcony, not something I would voluntarily do even when wearing parachute boots. > > (And why does the TSD spell-checker not accept the correct spelling of “storey”?) Paratroopers, with the exception of specialized stuff like HALO drops, are not using modern sport skydiving gear. They are jumping at relatively low altitudes (hundreds of feet, not 10-15 thousand feet) carrying large amounts of equipment and their goal is to get on the ground as quickly as possible (to speed deployment and avoid getting shot on the way down). With large numbers of jumpers in the air at the same time you also don’t want them having much control over direction in order to avoid collisions. Round canopies work very well at low speeds and low altitudes, they are relatively inexpensive compared to ramair canopies, are much less maneuverable, and they get the soldier down as quickly as possible without breaking bones, but a round is not a nice soft landing - if you watch film of people actually landing round canopies they come down pretty quickly and you need to do a good parachute landing fall (PLF) to lower the risk of injury. What paratroopers are doing has basically nothing in common with what recreational skydivers are doing. Modern (meaning since the 1980s) ramair canopies are low-performance inflatable wings. You actually fly them, they turn well, have good forward speed, low descent rate and a nice glide ratio. A proper landing is about as gentle as stepping off a curb and it’s really not hard to do; many students do picture-perfect standup landings on their first jump. If you mess up then I would say the most likely injury would obviously be to your legs (feet, ankles) simply because that’s what comes down first. In several years of running a college club and watching hundreds of people do their first jumps I can only recall two ankle injuries, and one of those I saw happen after the student, at the last minute, did a series of things he’d been specifically and repeatedly warned not to do which turned a beautiful approach (upwind, onto 37 acres of grass, nice gentle straight approach) into a trip to the ER with a dislocated ankle (he did a very low 180 degree turn into a downwind landing on a concrete runway with no attempt at a PLF - that’s a checklist for how to get hurt). He even said “That was completely my fault” and knew that he’d ignored just about everything they drum into students regarding safe landings. So yeah, it can happen, but like we’ve noted previously, it almost always involves a series of obviously bad choices. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/24 "2010-06-10T01:39:10Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > Aaaahhhh. It is clearer now. > > Just show them [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLW6MEZ9Dcs), . Uh, what happened to that guy? Is that a survivable situation? > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > (And why does the TSD spell-checker not accept the correct spelling of “storey”?) It’s probably checking American English, not British English, and in American English, it’s spelled “story” … yeah, it doesn’t like “colour,” either, so I think that must be it. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/25 "2010-06-10T01:43:25Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > Uh, what happened to that guy? Is that a survivable situation? The whole clip is interspersed with him talking about it after the fact, so my guess is he survived. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/26 "2010-06-10T03:13:14Z")
[Bill Dana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dana_(comedian))’s skydiving club was called “The Survivors”. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/27 "2010-06-10T04:26:19Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > [Source.](http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm) > > skydiving: 1 death per 100,000 jumps. > > Driving: 1.7 deaths per 100M miles. > > So your odds of dying in a skydiving jump are 1 in 100K. > > Your odds of dying during a 40-mile commute are 1 in 1,470,588. > > If it’s your wife’s first time, she’ll probably be doing a simple static-line jump followed by a simple glide, i.e. no freefall and no stunts on the way down. I expect this will dramatically reduce her risk of death from 1 in 100K to something closer to that commute. 1.7 is way out of date. The 2009 numbers are 1.16 per 100 million miles. Also consider that these numbers include pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. The number for people riding inside the cars and trucks is well under 1. [http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811291.pdf](http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811291.pdf) It might be better to compare skydiving to riding a motorcycle. The last year I could find the numbers for motorcycles is 2007, which is 38 fatalities per 100 million miles. [http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811159.pdf](http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811159.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/28 "2010-06-10T12:07:48Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s probably checking American English, not British English, and in American English, it’s spelled “story” … yeah, it doesn’t like “colour,” either, so I think that must be it. Sorry, but I grew up and went to school entirely in the US (Philadelphia) and that was the spelling I learned. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/29 "2010-06-10T19:24:33Z")
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, and he ain’t gonna jump no more. > **[Blood on the Risers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_on_the_Risers)** > > "Blood on the Risers" is an American paratrooper song from World War II. It is associated with all current American airborne units, including the 82nd Airborne Division, the 173rd Airborne Brigade and 11th Airborne Division, and the 120th CTS (United States) as well as British airborne units. It is known as "Mancha Roja" (Spanish for "Red Stain") in airborne units from multiple Latin American countries. In Spain it is called "Sangre en las cuerdas" ("Blood upon the risers" in English). > This song... Remember, folks, it’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden stop at the end! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/30 "2010-07-02T02:08:42Z")
> [@Shmendrik](#): > > The whole clip is interspersed with him talking about it after the fact, so my guess is he survived. Oops. I meant to be asking about the second clip, [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ledw5PKRBRo), where the guy opened his chute and got pulled out of the plane and caught on the tail. Not the clip from the TV show where the guy was clearly fine because he was being interviewed. Is THAT a survivable situation? ETA: Never mind, [this page](http://www.flightlevel350.com/aviation_videos.php?date=August+07%2C+2004) answers my question. He cut himself free and landed safely on his reserve chute, and the pilot managed to recover and land the plane safely as well. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/31 "2010-07-02T02:29:48Z")
I witnessed a skydiving accident once at a town fair. The last jumper in the skydiving exhibition came in too low over a large oak tree and a gust of wind knocked him into it folding his parachute. Seeing him tumble through all the branches to the ground was painful to watch. He broke his back and neck but I think he lived. OTOH, my mother went skydiving for her 60th birthday. I think it is the best sport possible for old people. All you really have to do is fall and some of them practice that a lot already. I want to go skydiving badly although everyone that volunteers to go with me always bails out (not literally) at the last minute. I have been parasailing a few times which is the same idea and that isn’t scary at all. I hear skydiving is pretty peaceful and surreal too because your mind can’t really comprehend extreme heights in the same way it can when, say, bungee jumping. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/32 "2010-07-02T02:40:42Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > …my mother went skydiving for her 60th birthday. I think it is the best sport possible for old people. All you really have to do is fall and some of them practice that a lot already… You mean like this old coot?: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5518350/George-Bush-Snr-celebrates-85th-birthday-with-skydive-over-Maine.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5518350/George-Bush-Snr-celebrates-85th-birthday-with-skydive-over-Maine.html) ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/33 "2010-07-02T14:47:53Z")
Did my first tandem jump a couple of weeks ago. Pretty cool. Watching a couple of guys dive out just before me was a little un-nerving but there wasn’t much time to be scared. The freefall seemed to go by pretty quickly but I was told to focus on the camera guy recording it so I didn’t do much looking around. Will definitely go again. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/34 "2010-07-02T15:10:49Z")
> [@chorpler](#): > > Oops. I meant to be asking about the second clip, [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ledw5PKRBRo), where the guy opened his chute and got pulled out of the plane and caught on the tail. Not the clip from the TV show where the guy was clearly fine because he was being interviewed. > > Is THAT a survivable situation? > > ETA: Never mind, [this page](http://www.flightlevel350.com/aviation_videos.php?date=August+07%2C+2004) answers my question. He cut himself free and landed safely on his reserve chute, and the pilot managed to recover and land the plane safely as well. Not sure about that guy, but it’s very similar to how my step brother died. (a pretty experienced skydiver). ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420/35 "2010-07-04T02:55:54Z")
I did a static line jump in '88. It was fantastic and my back got better after only a few years. I was knocked cold on landing. According to the instructor, the wind changed and my chute collapsed just as I was starting to flare the chute - I avoided leg/ankle injury because I was in a good landing position. Totally worth it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odds-of-dying-during-a-skydive-well-more-the-landing-really/542420.md?page=1)