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Study Proves Parachutes Don't Save People Who Fall Out Of Airplanes

Tribble

Tribble

Killjoy Boffin
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
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Objective To determine if using a parachute prevents death or major traumatic injury when jumping from an aircraft.
Design Randomized controlled trial.
Setting Private or commercial aircraft between September 2017 and August 2018.
Participants 92 aircraft passengers aged 18 and over were screened for participation. 23 agreed to be enrolled and were randomized.
Intervention Jumping from an aircraft (airplane or helicopter) with a parachute versus an empty backpack (unblinded).
Main outcome measures Composite of death or major traumatic injury (defined by an Injury Severity Score over 15) upon impact with the ground measured immediately after landing.


https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

via https://www.livescience.com/64307-parachutes-work.html
 
kamalktk said:
Study Proves Parachutes Don't Save People Who Fall Out of Airplanes

Duh, having a parachute doesn't save people who fall out of airplanes. OPENING the parachute however....
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Yes, somebody should have told the participants they should open the parachute when in the air.
 
I suppose it also helps if you open a parachute above a certain height, otherwise it may not open or be effective for the task at hand.
 
kamalktk said:
Study Proves Parachutes Don't Save People Who Fall Out of Airplanes

Duh, having a parachute doesn't save people who fall out of airplanes. OPENING the parachute however....
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Reminds me of the old saw about Yorkshiremen huddling round a candle when it gets cold.
And when it gets proper brass monkeys, they light it.
 
Y'all do know this is a joke, right?
The BMJ does this every year.

Edit: from 2014 -
Top 10 BMJ Christmas Papers

Every Christmas, the British Medical Journal publishes humorous scientific papers to bring some holiday cheer to their readers. So allow me to show you what science looks like with its hair down. Here are my top ten joke scientific articles from the BMJ.
Click to expand...
 
Tribble said:
Objective To determine if using a parachute prevents death or major traumatic injury when jumping from an aircraft.
Design Randomized controlled trial.
Setting Private or commercial aircraft between September 2017 and August 2018.
Participants 92 aircraft passengers aged 18 and over were screened for participation. 23 agreed to be enrolled and were randomized.
Intervention Jumping from an aircraft (airplane or helicopter) with a parachute versus an empty backpack (unblinded).
Main outcome measures Composite of death or major traumatic injury (defined by an Injury Severity Score over 15) upon impact with the ground measured immediately after landing.
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 via https://www.livescience.com/64307-parachutes-work.html
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The devil is totally in the detail of this study. FFS! These assholes should get corporal punishment and a funding cut if they released this study on any day other than April 1st.
 
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Tribble said:
Objective To determine if using a parachute prevents death or major traumatic injury when jumping from an aircraft.
Design Randomized controlled trial.
Setting Private or commercial aircraft between September 2017 and August 2018.
Participants 92 aircraft passengers aged 18 and over were screened for participation. 23 agreed to be enrolled and were randomized.
Intervention Jumping from an aircraft (airplane or helicopter) with a parachute versus an empty backpack (unblinded).
Main outcome measures Composite of death or major traumatic injury (defined by an Injury Severity Score over 15) upon impact with the ground measured immediately after landing.


https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

via https://www.livescience.com/64307-parachutes-work.html
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Having been thru jump school at Ft. Bragg and paratrooper training in the US Army, I believe I'm qualified to this is Bull crap. Note: nothing personal Tribble
 
Jim said:
Having been thru jump school at Ft. Bragg and paratrooper training in the US Army, I believe I'm qualified to this is Bull crap. Note: nothing personal Tribble
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Jim you do know it's a wind up don't you? See post 9.
(As an aside you've led an exciting life!)
 
Jim said:
When young but not now, paying the price a bit
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Well done on having served @Jim - did you jump from C-47, C-130 or something more exotic? And Ft Bragg....that must've been an amazing experience
 
Ermintruder said:
Well done on having served @Jim - did you jump from C-47, C-130 or something more exotic? And Ft Bragg....that must've been an amazing experience
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Thank you kindly I was fortunate to transfer to air-defense artillery and get a job (MOS) as a Hawk missile mechanic (so started a career that went into Radio engineering). It's fun when young but really no way to make a living. I was glad after a few years to move into something technical. I believe we jumped at ~ 1,200 feet out of C130's, they were very popular back in the 70's and a solid military transport - do what's needed plane..
 
Jim said:
so started a career that went into Radio engineering
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Great stuff....that explains the Bode plot as your avatar. Were you a PRC-77 tech, or even a PRC-47 engineer?
 
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Ermintruder said:
Great stuff....that explains the Bode plot as your avatar. Were you a PRC-7 tech, or even a PRC-47 engineer?
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Love looking at those older sets, great stuff. In the service I maintained repaired the electronics for the missile system i.e.: range only radar, guidance system etc., not manpack type equipment. While in the service I was a technician, upon discharge I liked RF so I continued into engineer schooling - radio design. The new devices have really gotten away from me since retiring. As luck would have it, I did work a later Manpack radio at Harris RF some 30" years later.
 
AlchoPwn said:
The devil is totally in the detail of this study. FFS! These assholes should get corporal punishment and a funding cut if they released this study on any day other than April 1st.
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The article is satirical — and proper satire with a serious purpose, rather than the absurdist nonsense that often masquerades as satire these days.

For my personal taste, the article is too long, but it seems to be in the format of a full paper, and satirises the many methodological mistakes and assumptions that are made in less obvious cases. The sort of people who are used to reading full papers of this kind will no doubt appreciate the subtleties more than I did, and may well learn something useful from it.
 
Ermintruder said:
Great stuff....that explains the Bode plot as your avatar. Were you a PRC-77 tech, or even a PRC-47 engineer?
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Funny coincidence I'm arguing with a cottage industry supplier at the moment about the abysmal quality of the 1/6 scale replica of that very radio I bought off him for £100. (off topic sorry)
 
PeteS said:
Funny coincidence I'm arguing with a cottage industry supplier at the moment about the abysmal quality of the 1/6 scale replica of that very radio I bought off him for £100. (off topic sorry)
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Presumably a PRC77, then? Are you doing a 'Nam diorama of some sort? Intriguing....

What you need is a matter manipulation beam/ray, that could shrink-down an original <Granite One Tango, this is Pitcher, we have mail for Charlie, lids on, Out>
 
Ermintruder said:
Presumably a PRC77, then? Are you doing a 'Nam diorama of some sort? Intriguing....

What you need is a matter manipulation beam/ray, that could shrink-down an original <Granite One Tango, this is Pitcher, we have mail for Charlie, lids on, Out>
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Doing a 'Nam era M3 halftrack in 1/6, but I didn't know whether that radio was correct or not. Thought it looked good but I'll have to scratch build one now.
 
Mikefule said:
The article is satirical — and proper satire with a serious purpose, rather than the absurdist nonsense that often masquerades as satire these days.

... the article ... satirises the many methodological mistakes and assumptions that are made in less obvious cases.
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Replying to myself for a reason. I had a PM about it. I'd rather keep debate to the open forum.

No, I am not a scientist, although I spent many years in a job that required careful and objective assessment not only of the evidence, but of the methods used to collect and evaluate the evidence.

A simple example from history: helmets cause head injuries.

At the start of WW1, most soldiers wore cloth uniform caps or similar. Shrapnel wounds to the head were common. Helmets were introduced as an obvious safety measure.

As with all good organisations, they collected data to assess the effectiveness of the initiative.

They discovered that medics were now seeing more soldiers with head injuries than before. Helmets were apparently increasing the risk.

Top brass were considering withdrawing the helmets (stop tittering at the back!) until some bright spark finally realised that many of the soldiers reporting with wounds to the head would have been dead if their helmets had not reduced the damage. There were no statistics to show what type of wounds caused death in the battlefield. Many of the people who had died had been hit it he head with shrapnel. Helmets reduced the risk of death but increased the number of serious non-fatal injuries.

In effect, once helmets were in use, the number of people moved from the column, "killed in action" to "head wound requiring treatment" increased more than the number of people moved from the column, "head wound requiring treatment" to "no head wound at all."

A case of bad assumptions, poor methodology and faulty analysis, although eventually put right.

In a different context, this is the type of thing that the satirical article is trying to address.
 
PeteS said:
but I didn't know whether that radio was correct or not
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Yes, it'll do fine for that era. I did think it was issued much earlier than 1968, but Wiki says no. An extremely-reliable radio, which I've had the brief experience of using first-hand (the real thing, not a 1/6th model copy).
 
[subjects] could have been at lower risk of death or major trauma because they jumped from an average altitude of 0.6 m [just under 2 feet] on aircraft moving at an average of 0 km/h.
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The key word of interest here is the conditional "could". Me, I'd've gone for would.

(But then, I've avoided jumping out of aircraft at fractionally-greater heights & speeds for nearly half a century....so I'm biased)

I just wish someone had reportably slipped/tripped/fallen/broken-a-nail during the experiment (survivably). Would've been a great little outlier stat.
 
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