Skydiving is a thrilling but dangerous – and sometimes deadly – activity. The Sacramento Bee has determined that since 1985, a staggering 28 people have died just at this one location outside Lodi, known today as the Parachute Center. Skydivers there have run into each other in midair.
They have had their parachutes malfunction. One dropped over nearby Highway 99 – and was slammed into by a semi-truck. Others have escaped mid-air mishaps, but not without serious injuries. A Bee investigation examined the situation, framed by trying to answer specific questions: How does a place where at least 28 people have died stay in business?
And what more can, or should, be done to prevent fatalities? The answers are complicated, but largely come down to this: Despite the inherent danger, skydiving is for the most part unregulated.
This was my first thought as well. ~100 weekend days per year, ~40 years, that's ~4,000 days just on the weekends. From memory, our tiny plane took up 8 jumpers (4 tandem pairs) and it looked like it was prepared to make plenty of trips per day. But even at a VERY conservative one trip per weekend day, that's 32,000 jumps.
And FWIW, pretty sure this is the place I actually went skydiving (tandem jump) many years ago. Can't recall the name, but I doubt Lodi is overloaded with skydiving centers. They seemed to be relatively busy with people there who were not randos like me but regulars with their own gear who looked like they did this often. I would not be surprised if the number of total jumps over 4 decades was well into the hundreds of thousands if not millions.
Also, to figure out if this particular area is dangerous, they would need to compare the death rate there to the death rate in other skydiving spots. Otherwise, they’re just pointing out that skydiving is a potentially deadly activity. Everyone that skydives knows that.