How Safe Is Skydiving

Skydiving is the original extreme sport, & it is perfectly natural to be nervous about doing it. Evolutionarily speaking, we have only just climbed down from the trees, so jumping out of an aeroplane makes your monkey brain ask a lot of questions. Despite what your instincts insist, many decades of continual refinement mean that skydiving is really very safe. Here are a few ways the wellbeing of skydiving (& skydivers) is looked after.

Skydiving Rules & Regulations

Every country that has active skydiving is governed by a selection of highly experienced people who have often been involved for decades. Organisations such as the Parachute Association of South Africa are tasked with managing & overseeing every aspect of parachute operations, such as the training of instructors, procedures relating to the maintenance of equipment, & also gathering any & all relevant statistics relating to the safety of the sport. Nobody likes to be hit over the head with endless rules, but a proven safety record with details that can be analysed keeps the safety level high & people acting responsibly – especially when we want as many new people to experience skydiving as possible.

Skydiving Equipment Safety

The very early days of parachuting – when ex-paratroopers were basically using trial & error to see if they could turn skydiving into a hobby – are now a long time ago. The techniques & materials used in the production of skydiving equipment add up to mean that parachutes are very good at what they are supposed to do. When squaring up to the idea of jumping out of an aeroplane for the first time it is perfectly natural to wonder, “is it worth the risk” or “what if my parachute doesn’t open?” Parachute equipment is actually highly reliable & undergoes documented maintenance every six months to ensure it is being looked after correctly. Also, every system, or ‘rig’, contains two parachutes, so even in the uncommon situation of a malfunction you can just use your reserve instead.

All of the equipment at Skydive Mossel Bay goes through regular safety checks & everything you need to get going is included in the cost of your skydive!

Skydiving’s Safety Record Has Made It A Sport

The repeatability of modern skydiving, combined with the continual advancement of our ability to do it, means that it has become a competitive sport. From the balletic freefall moves of ‘freestyle’ to the swooshing velocity of ‘canopy piloting’, the practitioners of the various disciplines treat their training much the same as athletes of other sports. As such, it is possible to pick up injuries – a pulled muscle here or a twisted ankle there. In reality though, sustaining any kind of injury while skydiving is quite rare & infrequent.

Tandem Skydiving Safety

By far the most common way to experience freefall for the first time is by tandem skydiving, meaning when a brand new skydiving student & an experienced instructor are harnessed together piggy-back style for the jump. Of all the different types of skydiving available, tandem offers the opportunity to experience it with little training, & a good safety record. It is quite common to hear it described that driving to the dropzone is the most dangerous part of your tandem skydiving experience, & indeed this is true. Over the last ten years, the fatality rate for a tandem jump is just 0.003 per 1000, which means you are more likely to die from a coconut falling on your head while walking down the beach or be eaten by a shark than you are to die skydiving. Additionally, tandem skydiving is a great way to experience for the first time what it is all about, as you get to savour the feeling by having someone else do much of the work.

Although your brain wants you to believe that leaping from an aircraft wearing a backpack made of canvas & string is a dangerous thing to do, it really is not. Modern skydiving allows you to indulge in something unrivalled in thrills & excitement, & do so in a managed & responsible way. Even knowing the above things in advance, you still may be nervous up until the point you make the jump, but the anticipation just adds to how great it feels to get out of the plane & into the sky.

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. Also, check out our reviews to see what our skydiving buddies are saying.

If you’re ready to go, book today!