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Re:Parachuting for Charity: A 5-year audit (1999) by digikazi on Thursday January 16, 2020 @12:52PM (#22066975)
Yes, that figure is probably right. I did my first parachute jump in the summer of '98, a year before this study. It was a static line jump, using a round canopy; ancient stuff even then! I had wanted to skydive for a long time, so it wasn't a "charity jump."

However, almost everyone else on my course was - they were really young as well, a bit naive and maybe a little dazed by the idea of jumping out of a plane. Some of them were Chinese/Korean students, with a very, very rudimentary grasp of the English language; I genuinely have no idea how they all passed the course, but they did. When they went on to jump, I think just under half of them ended up with broken legs/sprained ankles and so on. If my memory serves me right during the same drop the jumpmaster managed to kill himself too.

To sum up, 11% sounds about right.

Re:Parachuting for Charity: A 5-year audit (1999) by htfu on Thursday January 16, 2020 @01:14PM (#22067221)
Wait, you're not exactly sure whether your instructor died or not?

Just how drunk were you? Mushrooms are way more rewarding anyways.

Re:Parachuting for Charity: A 5-year audit (1999) by digikazi on Thursday January 16, 2020 @01:25PM (#22067315)
Not very drunk at all :)

The instructor's name was Andrew Kelly, and the time was May 1998 [1] - quite a long time ago, so forgive my foggy memory. I wasn't on that particular load; I had already done my first jump a few days before...and my second jump 3 days after he passed.

[1] - http://www.skydivingfatalities.info/search.asp?MinDate=5%2F8...

Re:Parachuting for Charity: A 5-year audit (1999) by htfu on Thursday January 16, 2020 @01:27PM (#22067335)
Ah fair play, makes sense.