An Australian Army soldier killed after a parachute training exercise went horribly wrong on the NSW South Coast has been identified.

Warrant Officer Second Class Lachlan Muddle, 50, from the special air service regiment, died when he collided with another paratrooper mid-air at the Jervis Bay Airfield military aerodrome on Monday night.

The other soldier, an ADF sergeant survived the fall and suffered minor injuries, but did not require hospitalisation. 

A special forces sniper and a freefall parachute specialist, Warrant Officer Muddle had been taking part in a training activity at the ADF parachute school.

‘After successfully opening parachutes, both paratroopers collided several hundred feet above the ground while manoeuvring towards the drop zone,’ Australian Army Special Operations Commander Major General Garth Gould said.

‘After the collision, both soldiers fell from height.’

He added that both paratroopers were highly skilled and had previously performed several thousand jumps between them.

The latest tragedy comes just two years after Lance Corporal Jack Fitzgibbon, 33, the son of former minister and Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, tragically died following a parachuting incident during a military training exercise.

An Australian Army soldier has died during a parachuting training course on the NSW South Coast (stock image)

The latest tragedy comes two years after the death of Lance Corporal Jack Fitzgibbon

 Warrant Officer Muddle enlisted the army in 1994 and joined the Special Operations Command in 2007, where he served in the special air service regiment.

‘He was highly regarded within our community,’ Major General Gould said.

‘He was skilled, professional and he will be remembered for his sense of humour and a genuine and deep commitment to serving the nation, serving the army and serving in the special air service regiment.’

Lance Corporal Fitzgibbon, 33, suffered critical head injuries during a training drill at the Richmond RAAF Base in Sydney’s north-west in March 2024. 

It is understood his parachute failed to open during a training exercise and he was forced to use a knife to try and free himself in order to deploy his reserve chute.

Lance Corporal Fitzgibbon was rushed to Westmead Hospital, where he later died.

His father Joel, who served as Australia’s defence minister between 2007 and 2009, was at a restaurant when he learned about the accident, later describing it as ‘the worst call of my life’.

He then received another call from Marles on his way to the hospital. 

‘(I was) trying to think the best but when Richard Marles called me about halfway out there (to the hospital), you know, having made those calls myself, I knew that for the minister, to be advised it was very, very serious,’ he recalled.

‘I used to be making these calls, never expecting to be receiving one.’

Mr Fitzgibbon added that he was ‘comforted’ by the fact his son died doing something he loved and lost his life in service for his country.

The tragedy happened at Jervis Bay Airfield, a military aerodrome on the NSW South Coast

‘We’re not going to be an angry family, obviously we sort of are embedded in the defence family ourselves,’ he said.

‘We owe it to Jack and those who will still jump or are still jumping to ask the hard questions.’

In a separate incident, another Australian Army soldier Tulsa Rumney, 26, died and two others were injured in a vehicle rollover during a routine training exercise at the Townsville Field Training Area in Far North Queensland last October.

More to come.