Sky diving accident Byron Bay

[dazza 38]

Apparently a woman has been killed.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

the other guy is critical, a tough day at the dropzone when something like that happens

 

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/nsw/skydiver-killed-and-another-injured-in-incident-on-nsw-north-coast-20150327-1m9jba.html

 

 

[ausadvance]

I watched it happen

 

 

[dazza 38]

I watched it happen

It must have been hard to witness it Tim. These things happen from time to time unfortunately.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

I watched it happen

Oh my, that's sad.

 

 

[JEM]

So sad to hear of this.

 

 

[Russ]

It must have been hard to witness it Tim. These things happen from time to time unfortunately.

" From time to time ".......To often actually, the numbers are alarming.

 

 

[farri]

Australian Parachute Federation 2012 Annual Report.

 

" The number of fatalities in any given time is a rough indicator of the safety of our sport. By this measure, last year was very bad with six fatalities, whereas the long term average is 2.5 fatalities per year."

 

I it copied from the actual report.

 

Frank

 

 

[Cosmick]

The Male involved has passed away from his injuries.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

It has been a pretty rough weekend, both were extremely popular jumpers. Michael was a top level competitor and instructor well known throughout the world. He went through a night of operations but his family made the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support late on Saturday. Alana was a talented jumper moving up through the ranks. Both will be sorely missed. No details on what went wrong other than both experienced a canopy entanglement, (wrap) and where unable to clear themselves. APF report expected early in the week.

 

Another jumper was injured at Barwon Heads Victoria as well over the weekend. Hopefully on his way to a full recovery.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Should be also noted that the reason we had a high number last year was the accident involving the C206 at Caboolture. Even tho it was an aircraft accident it is classed as Skydiving accident. Remove that and the sport was still within the average.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Fascinating chart of risks. Some surprises...

 

 

[aro]

Fascinating chart of risks. Some surprises...

That chart looks like absolute garbage.

 

Swimming: 1 in 1,000,000. So how do we get 60+ drowning deaths while swimming/year in Australia?

 

Parachuting, if you check the references is 1 in 101,083 jumps. I am sure that hang gliding is not 1 in 560 flights, which would be the comparable statistic. In fact, according to one of the references parachuting and hang gliding statistics are very close: 0.1786/100 particpants vs. 0.1754/100 participants.

 

It just looks like a collection of numbers, with no attempt to make them comparable to each other.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Interesting statistics- but how reliable? Looks like something patched together from a variety of sources to meet a publication deadline for some North American publication.

 

The numbers are thought-provoking, but not comparable. Even if scientifically verifiable, how many of us would choose our sport based on statistical risk?

 

 

[turboplanner]

Sources look a bit dodgy. Ayrton Senna was the last driver to die in Grand Prix racing.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

That chart looks like absolute garbage.

You're probably right! Maybe it was an April 1st thing....

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Rock fishing is number one in Australia with Asians being the most popular victim.

 

Local golf course is right up there as well, I see the ambulance parked on the longest fairway quite often picking up yet another heart attack victim.

 

APF has released their prelim report in the double fatality.

 

Simply states both exited together at 7000'. Her 4th jump of day, his 8th. Jump went as planned with canopy handling being the exercise. Flying close to each other. Approaching and turning away with soft contacts. At 3000' feet Michael hit the side of Alana's canopy. No details on who hit who. Michael became entangled in Alana's canopy and lines and both started a rapid spin. Emergency procedure should have been for the lower jumper, in this case Alana, to have released and gone back into free fall then opened her reserve. They continued spinning until impact. Rate of decent was not high enough to activate Alana's AAD as they passed through the activating height of 750'. Neither jumper made an effort to deploy their reserves. (High G forces from the spin may have been a factor)

 

It is a accepted that in a situation where entanglement prevents release, that at a low height getting as much material out as a last effort may help arrest the decent to something survivable.

 

The APF is still investigating and will release the full report in the near future.