Updated ,first published
An experienced Australian soldier has died in a midair collision during an army parachute training jump.
The soldier has been identified as a 50-year-old SAS sniper, Warrant Officer Second Class Lachlan Muddle, who was involved in instructing the course.
He joined the army in 1994 and the special operations command in 2007, spending most of his time in the SAS.
“He was operationally experienced. He was a highly qualified special forces sniper and military freefall parachutist,” Australian Army Special Operations Commander Major General Garth Gould said on Tuesday.
“He was highly regarded within our community. He was skilled, professional, and he’ll be remembered for his sense of humour and his genuine and deep commitment to serving the nation,” Gould said.
“In a tight-knit community like ours, his loss has been very deeply and immediately felt.”
A second soldier, a sergeant from the ADF’s parachute school, was injured but did not require hospitalisation in the incident at the Jervis Bay Airfield about 5.40pm on Monday.
“This was a midair collision between two experienced paratroopers,” Gould said.
The pair had opened their parachutes and were manoeuvring to the drop zone when they collided and fell to the ground.
The training exercise involved a high-altitude parachuting descent.
“It was early in the evening, with low-light conditions. The people involved in the training were using night-vision goggles,” Gould said.
The collision occurred a few hundred feet above the ground, in the fourth week of a six-week block of advanced military freefall training.
All parachute operations have been paused following the incident.
Former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s son, Lance Corporal Jack Fitzgibbon, 33, died in a parachute training incident at RAAF Base Richmond in Sydney’s north-west in March 2024.
It sparked multiple investigations and a two-month halt on all parachute training.
A NSW coronial inquest is ongoing but has not yet scheduled dates for a hearing.
The ABC reported in May 2024 six soldiers serving at the Richmond RAAF base, including five members of a unit that packs parachutes for military exercises, were facing expulsion after failing drug screening tests in the days before Fitzgibbon’s death.
But Defence insisted to the ABC “all personnel who were involved in packing and checking Lance Corporal Jack Fitzgibbon’s parachute tested negative for prohibited substances”.
Monday’s incident is the latest Defence training death after a soldier was killed in an exercise near Townsville in October when an armoured personnel carrier rolled.
with AAP
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Jack Gramenz is a breaking news reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
