What my three near death skydiving experiences can teach us about risk management

Over the last seven years, I have completed six hundred skydives.

Out of those, I have had three parachute malfunctions.

The first of these was at Skydive Algarve. I broke off from the group at 5000 feet, tracked away, did a few barrel rolls, attempted to pull at 3500 feet, and my pilot chute wouldn’t budge. After trying for what was probably only a few seconds, I decided to deploy my reserve. I panicked and fumbled the reserve drill, which we practice religiously before every jump. I got my reserve out at 1200 feet. Just in time to fly over the airfield fence and land on the runway. It’s not a situation I ever want to be in again.

The second time was at Skydive Hinton. Check out the video here if you are interested. I had been up late the night before, and my alarm didn’t go off. I rushed to the drop zone, jumped on the plane, and we took off. The whole thing felt very rushed. I deployed my parachute at normal height, and and within half a second, it started to dive and spiral. One of my brakes had ‘fired’, which means come loose! After struggling to get out of the dive for a few seconds, I deployed my reserve. This time, I was ready. I took a deep breath, calmly did my drill, deployed my reserve and landed safely.

The third time was at Skydive Sibson. I had not jumped for a while and was desperate to get in the air. It was a cloudy day, and inexperienced jumpers were grounded. C license holders like myself were allowed to jump. We climbed to altitude, the door opened, and the world was grey. There was blanket cloud cover as far as the eye could see. Still, I jumped. As I deployed my parachute, I felt my head trapped between the risers. I had packed myself a step through. It was time to ride the reserve for a third time. I did my drill and landed safely.

Despite being terrifying at times, Skydiving has been one of my life’s most exciting and rewarding experiences. I’d highly recommend at least a tandem to those with even a fleeting interest.

What’s all this got to do with risk management?

The first mal I could have mitigated the risk by not being complacent. That particular jump was the 43^rd jump that week. I got cocky. I shouldn’t have messed around doing barrel rolls. I should have deployed at 4000 feet, not 3500. I should have been more focused.

Lesson 1: Don’t get complacent. Conduct risk management at least annually. Any business can be breached at any time.

The second mal was essentially a packing error. I hadn’t stowed the break correctly. I packed the parachute, so that’s on me. However, because I fumbled the first mal, I was calm, focused, and executed my life-saving drills.

Lesson 2: Learn from your mistakes. Not just your own but the mistakes of others. The last two years have told us to align our cyber security strategy with Zero Trust principles.

The third incident was the scariest. Mainly because I couldn’t see what was going on above my head. I couldn’t turn or look up due to the risers being jammed together. It was another packing mistake on my part. After this I completed a packing refresh course, and when I was tired at the end of a day’s jumping, I paid for packers instead of doing it myself.

Lesson 3: Keep learning, know your limits and use experts to mitigate your risks.

These lessons have kept me alive through my skydiving career (just about!) and my customers safe and secure from cyber threats.

I suppose you could call the overarching principle ‘continuous improvement’.

Here’s to blue skies and secure networks.