“Would you be willing to jump out of this plane without a parachute?” For the last year we’ve posed this question, mid-flight, to dozens of unsuspecting travellers seated on commercial aeroplanes.Why would we set out to ask such a ridiculous question? Some background may be in order. In 2003, Smith and Pell published a tongue-in-cheek systematic review which concluded that there were no randomised clinical trials (RCTs) evaluating the effectiveness of parachutes in preventing major trauma related to “gravitational challenge.” They argued that the “most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine” should volunteer to participate in a randomised, double blind trial of the parachute. In the two decades since the appearance of this seminal work in The BMJ Christmas issue, the parachute has been the paragon of biological plausibility. The saviour of anecdote. The arch-nemesis of evidence based medicine. There isn’t a week that goes by without a head shaking colleague reminding us that the parachute hasn’t been tested in an RCT.The PARACHUTE trial is our satirical attempt at bringing the parachute, as well as the almighty RCT, back down to earth.
