page_title: Parachute
section_title: Safety
hierarchical_section_title: Parachute / Safety
caption_attribution_description: RAF Typhoon FGR4 (code ZJ939) on the landing run with braking parachute deployed, at Kemble Air show, Kemble Airport, Gloucestershire, England, on the 21st June 2009. Photographed by Adrian Pingstone and placed in the public domain.
context_page_description: A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong fabric, originally silk, now most commonly nylon. They are typically dome-shaped, but vary, with rectangles, inverted domes, and others found. A variety of loads are attached to parachutes, including people, food, equipment, space capsules, and bombs.
  A drogue chute is used to aid horizontal deceleration of a vehicle including fixed-wing aircraft and drag racers, provide stability, as to assist certain types of light aircraft in distress, tandem free-fall; and as a pilot triggering deployment of a larger parachute.
context_section_description: A parachute is carefully folded, or "packed" to ensure that it will open reliably. If a parachute is not packed properly it can result in a malfunction where the main parachute fails to deploy correctly or fully. In the United States and many developed countries, emergency and reserve parachutes are packed by "riggers" who must be trained and certified according to legal standards. Sport skydivers are always trained to pack their own primary "main" parachutes.
  Exact numbers are difficult to estimate because parachute design, maintenance, loading, packing technique and operator experience has a significant impact on malfunction rates. Approximately one in a thousand sport main parachute openings malfunctions, requiring the use of the reserve parachute, although some skydivers have many thousands of jumps and never needed to use their reserve parachute.
  Reserve parachutes are packed and deployed somewhat differently. They are also designed more conservatively, favouring reliability over responsiveness and are built and tested to more exacting standards, making them more reliable than main parachutes. Regulated inspection intervals, coupled with significantly less use contributes to reliability as wear on some components can adversely affect reliability. The primary safety advantage of a reserve parachute comes from the probability of an unlikely main malfunction being multiplied by the even less likely probability of a reserve malfunction. This yields an even smaller probability of a double malfunction, although there is also a small possibility that a malfunctioning main parachute cannot be released and thus interfere with the reserve parachute. In the United States, the 2017 average fatality rate is recorded to be 1 in 133,571 jumps.
  Injuries and fatalities in sport skydiving are possible even under a fully functional main parachute, such as may occur if the skydiver makes an error in judgment while flying the canopy which results in a high-speed impact either with the ground or with a hazard on the ground, which might otherwise have been avoided, or results in collision with another skydiver under canopy.
caption: RAF Typhoon using a drogue parachute for braking after landing.
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