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Written question asked by Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat) on Friday, 15 February 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 19 February 2008. It was answered by Bob Ainsworth (Labour) on Thursday, 21 February 2008 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Parachuting: Injuries

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many parachute-related (a) injuries and (b) deaths there were in each of the last 10 years in (i) the Army, (ii) the Royal Navy and (iii) the Royal Air Force.
Answer

The MOD introduced the Central Health and Safety project (CHASP) database in 1997 to collect health and safety incident data in the Department, mostly on duty or on MOD property. Although 65 parachute-related incidents have been recorded for the 10-year period 1997 to 2006 (data for 2007 is not currently available), difficulties with CHASP data collection suggest these are likely to represent an undercount of the true figure and details are unreliable. I am therefore unable to provide a detailed breakdown of these figures, and the instance of parachute related injuries over the last decade.Details on annual parachute-related deaths in the UK regular armed forces for each year during the 10-year period 1997-2006, are listed in the following table.

Table 1: Parachute related deaths in the UK regular armed forces, by service (number), 1997 to 2006
All Naval service¹ Army RAF
All 10 1 6 3
1997 0 0 0 0
1998 0 0 0 0
1999 0 0 0 0
2000 2 0 2 0
2001 1 1 0 0
2002 2 0 2 0
2003 2 0 1 1
2004 1 0 0 1
2005 2 0 1 1
2006 0 0 0 0
¹ Royal Navy and Royal Marines

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
472 c894W; 187004
Session
2007-08
Subjects
Armed forces Parachuting
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk