An army soldier has died during a parachuting training course at Jervis Bay airfield, Defence has announced.

The Special Air Service Regiment warrant officer Lachlan Muddle, 50, died following a mid-air collision with another paratrooper on Monday evening after their parachutes had deployed.

The collision occurred a few hundred feet above the ground in low-light conditions, Maj Gen Garth Gould told reporters on Tuesday.

Gould said both paratroopers were highly experienced, with several thousand jumps between them. They were wearing night-vision goggles at the time.

“What we know of the incident suggests that both paratroopers collided several hundred feet above the ground while they were manoeuvring towards the drop zone,” Gould said. “After the collision, both soldiers fell from height.”

The second soldier involved, a sergeant from the Australian Defence Force’s parachute school, survived the fall with minor injuries and provided immediate first aid to Muddle. He did not require hospitalisation and was recovering.

Muddle joined the Army in 1994 and had served with Special Operations Command since 2007, primarily within the SASR. He was a highly qualified special forces sniper and military freefall parachutist with extensive operational experience.

Gould said the training was part of a six-week block of advanced military freefall training. On Monday evening, the soldiers were jumping from a civilian commercial aircraft leased by the military.

In response to Muddle’s death, the ADF paused all personnel parachuting operations nationwide pending an investigation.

The federal government frontbencher Mark Butler said Monday’s death was a “very deep tragedy”.

ADF soldier Jack Fitzgibbon, the son of former Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon, died in early 2024 during a parachute incident during a routine training activity in Sydney.

The 33-year-old was injured in March 2024 at the RAAF airbase at Richmond, about 50km north-west of Sydney’s CBD. He received first aid at the scene and was taken to Westmead hospital in a serious condition but later died from his injuries.

Parachute training was paused for two months, and investigations were launched by the NSW coroner and the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force.

Another army soldier died and two others were injured during a training accident in north Queensland in October 2025.

That soldier was fatally injured in a vehicle rollover at the Townsville Field Training Area.

Two soldiers were also killed in a truck rollover south of Townsville in August 2021.

The defence department was charged in September 2023 with breaching federal work health and safety laws over the 2021 incident.