What's The Real Risk Of Paragliding?

The reality of paragliding is...

Heads you Crash
Tails you crash

Sooner or later you will crash. If you don't give up you'll crash some more. When you thinks you're too good to crash you'll crash again....when you stop paragliding there's a realistic chance you'll never crash again paragliding..
If you can't take a Knock......
Don't do It....

I've been riding motorcycle for 6 years and I really don't want to know my chances)
Good luck everyone!

My understanding of Probability is it doesnt compound because goes to the bet on red or black, should be 50% but it isnt

We have no choice in death, we can only choose whether or not we live before we die.

There is some strange math here: if there was 150 accidents out of 7500 is 2%, ok, but if you do 100 flights, the risk per flight is still 2%!!! Beside the report stated that 152 out of 388 were documented, so the real number is 388. so >5%
moreover 0.98 (Probability of not having an accident on a single flight) should be multiplied by the flight and then by the years. 0.54 % chance after just 30 flights

cool video😊

Every landing is a crash eh.

Just about every paraglider pilot I have met has a near death story to tell, the window of safe operations is very small. I have flown paragliders, hang gliders, gliders and light aircraft.

I used to fly paragliders, sadly I did see a few accidents and people loose their lives. That said, my hobby now, road cycling is far more dangerous in the U.K. Won’t stop, there is always risk in life.

Don`t know about stats? if it`s your day the wind will come and the wing will fold. So far it hasn`t been my day, but then i`m a hangie and my wing doesn`t tend to fold much. Launches and landings are easy, learn to do them well, that goes for all aviation. Unless you`re a nutter, look for predictable situations, surprises tend to get you hurt. Fly as much as possible and don`t ignore the fear . The ground is hard, keep away from it,,,

As a retired glider pilot it does seem a rather high level of risk. Experience and good training seems a major factor.

Nice.

There is a paradox with paragliding safety .
There is no substitute for actual flying experience. But the more flying, the more risk. Take offs and landings cause the majority of the accidents. You have to accumulate those to improve your safety but you increase the probability of injury every time just because of the variability of luck.

I think in any risky sports activity complacency is the biggest factor (the human factor). Always be sober and always be paranoid (question yourself on every action and situation. What if ???).

I fly paramotor's and ride motorcycles, and I'd feel much safer being in the air rather on the motorcycle.... lot less distracted drivers in the air :) Excellent video.

Very good greg ❤

;;;;;;;;;; 2 Esdras2: 31-100 ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Covid also kills 1%

Great Channel! I'm just beginning to look into the sport. Your videos and the comments have been really helpful. I'm 49 yrs old and live in SLC, UT near a popular gliding area that has lots of schools so my access into the sport is pretty easy. The hike and fly options in UT are great. Learning to fly both intrigues me and terrifies me! I'm still on the fence considering the safety, but I already engage in sports the are equally if not more risky so maybe I'm diversifying my risk by learning to fly ;) Thanks for all of the great information!

Thank you for your work, it ilustrates a lot. Do you consider the Swing Nyos with Rast system a safe wing? Or is it marketing?

Total nonsense

I feel like getting in my car almost every day is much more dangerous

Hi, Greg. Thanks for the video. I am a hobby PG pilot and a full-time doctor. I have a bit of a problem with the numbers on the video. My math is very rusty, so if any mistakes let me know. Here we go,
Given the estimated probability of
- Any flight accident rate of 2% (0.02)
- Serious injury 0.67% (0.0067)
- Fatality 0.05% (0.0005)



So the probability of
- No accident per year 98% (0.98)
- No serious injury 99.33% (0.9933)
- No fatality 99.95% (0.9995)



Then the probability of
- No accident for 30 years is (0.98)^30 = 54.5%
- At least one accident in 30 years is 1 - (0.98)^30 = 45%
- At least one serious injury in 30 years is 1 - (0.9933)^30 = 18.2%
- A fatality in 30 years is 1 - (0.9995)^30 = 1.5%



The numbers are the probability over the while 30 years period (i.e. before you start). You can’t really fly when too young or too old, so 30 years period represent lifetime risk for most people. These lifetime risk numbers are statistics and could be misleading if one is not familiar with statics.


For comparison, the risk that a man will develop cancer of the pancreas during his lifetime is 1.7%. Pancreatic cancer has less than 2% of 10-year survival rate. So, one is unlikely to survive this cancer. Then you should be more concerned about pancreatic cancer than PG death.

Now, these are lifetime risks and have different meanings in different contexts.

Every year the real risk remains the same (Realistically I would assume the number would be high and then drop off, but no data so let speak statistics)
- Any flight accident rate of 2%
- Serious injury 0.67%
- Fatality 0.05%



That's it. Whether you are a 1st year PG pilot, a 2nd, a15th, or a 30th-year PG pilot. Each year the risk remains the same. There is no "compounding" risk as in bank money compounding.

What is the chance of you getting the face with “1” when you toss the dice? 1/6 (16.7%)

It doesn’t matter how many times you threw the dice before. Each time when you toss the dice, it will be 16.7%. Each year flying, the same risk as the first year or any other year.

You’re really bad at explaining statistics. Your calculation showed that 1 in every 100 active flyers die within 30 years. That’s a lot.

Blimey, what an awful synopsis.

Have you ever seen anyone break down the incidents by type or are the reports not that granular? For example, in the motorcycling world, we have similar risk profiles, but when you break it down by accident type you realize that you can mitigate huge chunks of risk with simple behavioral changes, e.g. not drinking (AT ALL) before getting on the bike, paying close attention to the behavior of other vehicles on the road and your positioning relative to them, and not carrying too much speed into your turns.

Those three factors (alcohol, inattention, excessive maneuvering speed) are involved in around 80% of accidents, so their mitigation drops the injury rates by a lot. I can vouch for it myself; watching other vehicles like a hawk has literally saved my life on at least two occasions and I've only been riding for three years.

I'm just wondering if there's a similarly simple "making these 1-3 behavioral changes eliminates 80% of paragliding accidents" tactic for risk mitigation here.

If your country's average death rate is 82, but you are a healthy 76 year old, your chances of living well past 82 are high. How would this apply if you had flown without a serious accident for twenty years? Much the same, I would guess.

who gives a shit. just go out and do it. driving is more dangerous

Great work thanks

Hi Greg! For the numbers, you take the number of flights vs the number of pilots. I think it may make more sense calculating the probability of having an incident in a specific flight. What are your thoughts about it? Awesome chanel by the way!!

Oh it would appear to be just perfectly fine, jest fine, until the first little invisible willie willie comes twisting around.

I started flying paragliders in 1987, and flew "full time" as a semi-professional comp pilot from 1994 to 2011. Over the years I have accumulated 1000's of hours in ALL SORTS of conditions, and crashed hard twice. I have also lost very many friends along the way. I have known for almost 20 years that paragliding isn't a sport or a pastime, it is an addiction; if you can help it, please do. This autumn I suddenly realised that I "could help it" - I still love flying, and have a lot of fun doing it, but it is not the major factor in defining to myself "who I am" any more. So I decided to quit. It's not like I will feel awful if I ever take to the skies again, but I won't go on paragliding trips any more, I won't register for comps any more, and I probably won't invest in paragliding gear any more. I'll almost certainly live longer for it.

Got a question: my concern with computer simulations is that a) they don't give you full sensation of weights and forces as well as of procedures and situations, and b) they are all programmed by humans, which means there will be a good deal more predictability about everything in them than there would be in real life. So would you say computer simulations do more good than harm, or more harm than good? Are they valuable, or do they lead people to think they'll be more likely to cope in any given situation than they, in fact, would be, when faced with it in real life?

The strange thing, for me, looking in from the outside, isn't that it's high risk. It's that the high risk of paragliding in particular is considered so much less acceptable than other things that carry, perhaps, an equivalent level of risk but are more familiar to more people. Many horse riders would consider paragliders to be bonkers, for example. But horse riding is among one of the most dangerous sports, statistically. Cycling, swimming, skiing, caving and rock climbing, too, and mountaineering most of all, statistically. I think the swimming and cycling would surprise a lot of people. Possibly the skiing, too. I'm not trying to diminish the risk of any of these. In fact, having a healthy sense of caution probably reduces one's risks considerably by making them never forget basic safety precautions. I just don't think mythologising the risk for specific things (NOT saying you're doing this, by the way!) on the basis that they seem less familiar and less instinctive than other activities that are also high risk but more deeply evolutionarily-encoded in us (humans have a millennia-long heritage of swimming and climbing, for example, but not of flying) helps with the representation of the implications of the risk of paragliding in comparison.

Hi Greg! I wondering if its possible to get up in the air with paraglider from a flat place ex with help of wind ? How to increase altitude ? Just use A lines? Its flat everywhere there I leave, I am a begginer and use to get out with my paraglider when is strong wind just to get in touch with it

Only 1% in 30 years of flying. I'd take those chances for sure. Rather die having fun than sitting on my ass being 100% safe.

Such a great video Greg!

pay attention its trying to kill you wow that resonated

Much gratitude for your information 🙏

Thanks Greg, I've been flying for 10 years now. As a woman in this sport in SA and in the Garden Route I found myself very much alone in this sport in the first 6 years, until I had a serious accident. It is only then that I really started learning more and being more ⚠️ cautious and making better decisions due to a paragliding community that pulled together via a WhatsApp group. I'm now loving it more and make better decisions, never forcing a take off, a landing or in flight decision. I guess it's like driving a car and enjoying the ride rather than being a racing driver that takes risks. I hope to enjoy this sport more in years to come.

When I was flying hang gliders some 30 years ago a guy gave a very interesting presentation on risk. Once you have passed the initial dangers inherent in learning the sport, the risks you take depends on a couple of things. Firstly, your risk profile. We have all seen the nutters on the hill who think that they are invincible. They are not and usually end up adding to the statistics. The second tends to depend when, not if, you have that first accident. If you have it when you are fairly new to the sport and it scares you then you tend to take more care and that in turn reduces your risk. If you carry on without an incident then you tend to gradually increase the risk you take. If you then have an accident it is often more serious, if not fatal. This is because you have unwittingly moved towards that invincible category and put yourself in a more dangerous situation. Mindset in this sport is absolutely critical and a calm, measured approach will keep you safer than a ‘must get in the air let’s not worry about line checks today’ mindset. Ari in the Air has a great video on this very topic which is worth a view. Thanks Greg for keeping us focussed on this topic and your video on dust devils which highlights my thoughts above.

!

Love from India ❤️🙏

I’ve completely eliminated my flight risk. I sit behind a piano.

I really like your videos! You are very realistic and experienced, do not stretch the truth or mislead like lots of famous paramotor and paraglider pilots.

Dang, you might have just talked me out of getting back into paragliding....

Greg .. you are not Mr Bubble (head) ??😃😃😃😃 Always thought you were co-owner..
Good fortune with your new direction ../.. focus!

30 years, 1% chance, I feel like in comparison to a person's overall chance of dying to some other much more mundane calamity during that time period (cancer, car crash, etc), paragliding really doesn't seem so bad...