Kiting Fatality Analysis, 2000 - 6/2006

[Sea&Sun]

Severe accidents frequently involve the lack of sufficient:

Hazard Awareness, Appreciation and Avoidance.

Definitely seeing plenty of that... Guys don't know a weather system / wind change is coming, they don't care, and they don't put down their kites.

I agree with this so much I have to bring it back up!!! I see kiters staying until the storm is on thier ass. Most of these guys are seasoned locals who can kite when ever its windy. They just don't get it.

[Larpy]

To my knowledge there have been no fatalities involving flat kites yet.

I fear we may be in for some significant losses as people rediscover reality particularly in high and excessively gusty winds with flat kites.

Flat kites give an edge but you can be undone in many ways at the high end. I am disturbed by all the reports of sessions in 35 to 50 mph winds. I suspect a good part of this may be exaggeration of actual winds but people may still be lead on by such reports to have their own personal collisions against hard reality in time. I would say for any reported session above 35 mph, make damned sure about the wind speed you are reporting. If you are uncertain, say so and avoid guessing high!

NOTE: For every fatality there is reason to believe that there have been many more non-fatal but severe accidents.

The good news is that in avoiding a fatal accident you can readily avoid less severe injuries as well by the same practices.

It is a numbers game.

Poor practices won't necessarily get you killed or even injured. They just increase the odds of having a readily avoidable accident that may take you out permanently, or lay you up with a lingering disability or trash your gear and/or our access.

Kiting past a minimum level is EASY, just like steering an airplane. It takes a lot more than that to do it well over the long haul with reasonable safety for yourself, bystanders and the good of our sport.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

Interesting stuff Rick.

Two things.

One I have witnessed and can imagine that Bow kites give some riders a false sense of security and have seen people go out in to winds way over powered with bow kites. I know some of these riders and know that they wouldn't be out on c of that size. The problem is that when something goes wrong they are really in serious danger, it would seem to me. I guess we are talking avoidance here!

I would be interested in a comparison between Kiting and other sports that I would think would have similar danger levels like ski diving rock climbing, MTB, motocross, ATV, snow boarding, skiing and the like. I think, for myself that these would be more meaningful. We can manipulate stats so easily.

[Windrider]

Another interesting stat would be:

How many serious injuries / deaths are caused to bystanders by kites? versus How many pedestrians are injured by cars? How many bystanders/swimmers are hurt by boats, etc.? (again, it would have to be normalized to a common relative scale)

[RickI]

Interesting stuff Rick.

Two things.

One I have witnessed and can imagine that Bow kites give some riders a false sense of security and have seen people go out in to winds way over powered with bow kites. I know some of these riders and know that they wouldn't be out on c of that size. The problem is that when something goes wrong they are really in serious danger, it would seem to me. I guess we are talking avoidance here!

I would be interested in a comparison between Kiting and other sports that I would think would have similar danger levels like ski diving rock climbing, MTB, motocross, ATV, snow boarding, skiing and the like. I think, for myself that these would be more meaningful. We can manipulate stats so easily.

After researching for a long time , I finally was able to work out comparative loss statistics for skiing and snowboarding in the USA using info developed by what seems to be a skiing industry lobby group. Guess what?

Skiing and snowboarding combined came out to be more safe than walking! It may even be true, given the number of pedestrians (virtually everyone in the USA for quite a few hours per year) vs. the millions that hit the slopes during the season. Then again, it sort of flies into the face of reason at one level don't you think?

I may dust off the skiing/snowboarding numbers and put them in the final report at the risk of creating some confusion. BTW, I am thinking of posting the report in segments here.

You mentioned diving, those numbers have already been put up in this post. I will look around for credible loss statistics for the other activities you mentioned. I will also see what I can find for windsurfing, nothing yet and even surfing per Toby's suggestion. Credible total surfer population numbers may be a hard thing to come by for anyone though.

Other ideas out there?

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[RickI]

Another interesting stat would be:

How many serious injuries / deaths are caused to bystanders by kites? versus How many pedestrians are injured by cars? How many bystanders/swimmers are hurt by boats, etc.? (again, it would have to be normalized to a common relative scale)

There have been no reported bystander kiting fatalities that I am aware of. Good thing too, as this could be very bad for our sport.

We need to be VERY careful when it comes to bystanders. Maintaining reasonable downwind buffers when you have a kite up is critical. USE DISTANCE ALWAYS.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[Sea&Sun]

Another interesting stat would be:

How many serious injuries / deaths are caused to kiter when wearing helmet and impact vest.

[DrLightWind]

Another interesting stat would be:

How many serious injuries / deaths are caused to kiter when wearing helmet and impact vest.

RickI, thank you for sharing the cause of hidden nature of wind,
which making us to teach and how to live with harmony and respecting nature.

So far most of the injuries were survived by wearing helmet.
Even those riders who were in coma for a while.
Which tells you at least the death rate can be reduced.

Best is awareness, but safety gear, full depower kite is desirable to have,
especially when it's high wind, gusty and onshore to minimize injury.

DrLW

[magic%20Ed]

Well, one more fatality: just read the news that an injured dutch kiter past away this afternoon. Another sad story.

Maybe one of the witnesses can give some details. If not, I will provide what I can from the dutch websites.

[RickI]

Another interesting stat would be:

How many serious injuries / deaths are caused to kiter when wearing helmet and impact vest.

There have been a few fatalities with riders wearing helmets. Helmets aren't magic and some impacts are so powerful as to be non-survivable regardless of what protective gear you have on. In all cases the goal is to avoid the emergency in the first place, i.e. "what do you do if you drive off a cliff?" You need to avoid the cliff in the first place.

Still, no helmets have been used in the vast majority of fatalities. These accidents typically involve trauma, often to the head. It seems likely that the number of losses would have been reduced had helmets been used. Also, for non-fatal accidents the degree of impairment, temporary and permanent may have been improved if a lid was in use. It is pretty obvious that a lot of people would be better off today if they had been using appropriate helmets for kiting.

What is a more important question, is how many lives have been saved by helmets. That question hopefully will be answered along with quite a few others with the new database in the works to track all reported accidents and incidents online.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[RickI]

Well, one more fatality: just read the news that an injured dutch kiter past away this afternoon. Another sad story.

Maybe one of the witnesses can give some details. If not, I will provide what I can from the dutch websites.

That is really bad news. I wish the rider's family, friends what comfort they can find at this terrible time.

Could you provide what information that you can in a new thread? I did a quick search using a translation engine and was unsuccessful in coming up with anything.