Definitely parallels in the cultures.

We live close enough to a skydiving place that we see skydivers from our yard every day when the weather is good. I’ll be doing yard work and hear the familiar sound of a parachute opening and the concomitant whoop from far above.

We’ve lived in our current location about 15 years now. There have been more than a dozen deaths (that we know of) at that facility; just a small flavor: https://www.nj.com/south/2012/11/body_of_skydiver_found_near_la.html  And that’s not counting injuries which are rarely reported in the media, although I saw a report back in May that someone apparently had a compound fracture of their femur.  In one of the deaths, the victim landed about 2/3 of a mile from our house.  From the press reports I’ve read, the place has kept operating even as they are scraping up the mess with statements along the lines of “it’s what he would have wanted”.  No safety standowns, no root cause analysis, nothing.  

Most of the press reports have disappeared from the news sites and search engines over the years, but you get the idea from this 2005 incident report: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/nyregion/two-sky-divers-in-fatal-tangle-in-new-jersey.html   Selected lines:

Two experienced sky divers were killed at a parachuting school in southern New Jersey yesterday afternoon after colliding in midair and hopelessly entangling their parachutes.

The police would not release the names of the victims, saying they had not notified their families. But they said that one was a 33-year-old man who had completed more than 1,600 jumps and the other was a 23-year-old woman who had made 1,000 jumps.

Four other people have died in sky-diving accidents at the school since 1998, according to local newspaper reports.

One 29-year-old sky diver from Louisiana died last September when his parachute failed to open properly. In October, a parachutist died when he crashed into a nearby mobile home, knocking down the railing and breaking down a door.

"Jumping is like driving a car; if you don't look before you turn, you can turn into oncoming traffic, like hitting a car to the right or left of you," said Mr. Bangs, who is also the president of the United States Parachute Association. "To lose two very gifted people like that is a tragedy."

The airport continued to operate late yesterday afternoon, sending planes into the air for other sky divers. Sky divers gave a demonstration at the town's Fourth of July fireworks display yesterday evening.

Sky-diving veterans at the school said the accident would not stop them from continuing to jump.

"Accidents happen," said Curt Shearer, a 65-year-old Clayton, N.J., resident who said he had completed some 300 jumps since the 1960's.

"Sky diving is a really safe sport. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my grandchildren," he said. "You have accidents happen when you walk in front of a truck."

The following year, there was a tandem death where the two hit on or near our local movie theater (across from the local Home Depot)  and well, this one just speaks for itself. "Skydiving went on after deaths. Freefall Adventures' owner said jumps continued on Sunday after two men died because of the skydivers' code of ethics”. See https://web.archive.org/web/20160222220039/http://articles.philly.com/2006-09-12/news/25412444_1_united-states-parachute-association-skydiving-instructor-first-time-jumpers   Read the whole thing. This is just the opening paragraphs…

The two skydivers - a veteran instructor and a novice jumper who were tethered - lay dead, their bones in jumbles, on a Gloucester County lawn across from a Home Depot.

The ambulances arrived with lights flashing. The police marked the spot off Berlin-Cross Keys Road with crime tape. Investigators took photos.

And other skydivers continued to jump.

An hour or so after Sunday's fatal accident, skydivers were back in the air, falling at 120 m.p.h. - the "terminal velocity" at which a human body reaches its maximum speed.

They were jumping while the police were still investigating the incident, but that's the sport," said Michael Gabbianelli, the mayor of Monroe Township, a South Jersey town known around the world as a skydiving mecca.

In the last decade, eight skydivers - including skydiving instructor Paul Joseph 3d and novice Reed Michael Loeschke on Sunday - have died at Cross Keys Airport, home of Freefall Adventures Skydiving School. The school's two fatalities last year appear in line with other skydive schools across the United States, where 27 people died in 3.2 million jumps.

"Those poor people died, but you know what, there is going to be someone taking their place tomorrow," Gabbianelli said. "It's not like they are going to stop jumping because this happened. That's their high. That's their rush."

Gabbianelli, a retired police lieutenant, said he once investigated a skydiving death in which the victim's jump partner "just took out a sandwich and started eating his lunch like it was no big deal."

To Mark Simone, whose best friend was the student who died this weekend, the whole thing seemed callous.

"I am so appalled that they would continue to fly an hour after two deaths," said Simone yesterday.

Simone, 28, a doctor from Connecticut, was one of four people, including Loeschke's sister, who jumped together that day.

"They said there were 200 people making reservations," Simone said. "They would stand to lose a lot of money if they closed down."

“Code of ethics”.  Ethics. Uhhhh-huuuuh. Suuuuure.   https://youtu.be/dTRKCXC0JFg?t=8 

The name of the place changed recently, so I can only hope the safety culture has, too.  Looks like sport has faced the same educational challenges we’ve had to deal with. Complacency, high turnover/throughput etc. etc.

Rob Toreki

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On Oct 24, 2022, at 10:26 AM, Ralph Stuart <ralph**At_Symbol_Here**RSTUARTCIH.ORG> wrote:

My son and I went skydiving for the first time on Saturday. In addition to the emotional and physical experiences that I went through, the process was a fascinating experience in safety culture. I’m still incorporating my observations into a story based training about what I learned as a safety professional. But I wanted to bring to the list’s attention to an article I found in the process of following up on the experience. Specifically, I found a reflection on the safety culture of the skydiving community at
https://www.skydivemag.com/new/safety-culture/

It is written by the manager of a skydiving facility and describes the evolution of his approach to safety over the course of his career and his increasing appreciation for the impact of community safety on his personal decision-making. The 2021 article makes a lot of the safety culture concepts we talk about in the lab safety field concrete and his ideas appear to be transferrable to the work we do.

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