An Australian special forces sniper 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 mid-air with another paratrooper at the Jervis Bay Airfield military airfield on Monday night.

It is understood the two parachutes became tangled. 

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

It 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. 

A special forces sniper and a free-fall parachute specialist, Warrant Officer Muddle had been taking part in an exercise shortly after 5.30pm on Monday as part of a six-week advanced parachuting training course.

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

‘After the collision, both soldiers fell from height.

‘It was early in the evening, with low-light conditions. The people involved in the training were using night-vision goggles.’

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

Warrant Officer Muddle enlisted 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.

‘His loss has been deeply and immediately felt.’

The ADF has paused all parachuting operations until further notice, as investigations into the latest tragedy are underway.

‘Our priority at the moment is supporting Warrant Officer Muddle’s family and providing support to the ADF members involved in the incident last night, as well as supporting the initial investigative matters,’ Major General Gould said.

Defence Minister Richard Marles added that Warrant Officer Muddle’s loss will be felt acutely.

‘There will now be a series of investigations both within the defence force and more broadly,’ he said. 

‘We are committed to both being as thorough as possible so that every necessary lesson is learned.

‘The Defence Force trains as it fights. There is necessary risk in defence force training and what that means is that Lachlan Muddle’s sacrifice is as meaningful and significant as any of those on the battlefield.’

Major General Gould said he has a ‘high degree of confidence’ in the ADF training system, just two years after Lance Corporal Fitzgibbon was killed in similar circumstances.

‘Since then, we have undertaken a very thorough review of our parachuting system.  It’s a system that I have already had a very high degree of confidence in. We’ve implemented an independent safety board in that intervening time,’ he said. 

Major General Gould added that three separate reports into Lance Corporal Fitzgibbon’s death will be made publicly available when they conclude.

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’s understood that when his parachute failed to open, he was forced to use a knife to free himself and 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 of his country.

‘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.