Reporting - CHIRP

British Skydiving already has a mandatory reporting system for injuries, malfunctions, off landings and any incidents which a CI feels are appropriate to report. However, for every significant incident there are usually many more “near miss” occurrences which, through pure luck, do not result in harm but from which we could all learn. Sadly many of these are never formally reported (for a range of quite understandable reasons) and so we never get the chance to learn from them and prevent future harm.

Reasons for not reporting may include not wanting to appear foolish or incompetent, not wishing to be in conflict with a PTO or DZ management and not wishing to incur a risk of disciplinary action or loss of ratings. Although there is some movement towards a “no blame” culture, many jumpers do not feel confident enough to make formal reports to regulatory bodies.

CHIRP is a registered charity and is independent of the CAA and British Skydiving. It already provides a confidential reporting system for general aviation (and commercial aviation and maritime industries) and is now including the facility to report skydiving concerns.

Incident reports, or reports of organisational concerns, have identifying features removed before being discussed by a panel of relevant experts. Conclusions include assessment of preventable human factors and are published every three months. CHIRP will ask for your contact details so that they can seek clarification or further information from you but will never release your details to any other organisation without your specific consent.

CHIRP have a website and an app, but only the website will accept skydiving reports initially. Go to https://chirp.co.uk/aviation/

Many initial questions are aimed primarily at pilots and can be left blank. Provided you select “Submit Report”, and then Report Type “Skydiving & Parachuting”, you will eventually get to a page aimed specifically at skydivers. Some fields are limited in size, but you can add limitless text in the form of attached documents or attach links to larger video files. Provided there is adequate use of the system to justify it, the website and app will eventually be modified to make it more skydiver friendly. Reporters are encouraged to consider their own reports and state which human factors or other causative factors they feel may have played a part (see https://chirp.co.uk/hot-topic/chirp-aviation-and-the-dirty-dozen/ ).