Australian soldier dies and five injured in training exercise

An Australian soldier has died and five others have been injured during a training exercise in the Northern Territory (NT).

On Tuesday, the Department of Defence confirmed the incident happened on Monday at the Mount Bundey training area, about 130km (80 miles) southeast of Darwin but gave no further details.

The area – used by the army for live fire training – is the same location where Jason Challis was killed in 2017 after he was shot in the head during an exercise. The department later pleaded guilty for failing to comply with workplace safety.

Monday’s incident is the second death of an Australian soldier this year after a paratrooper died after a mid-air collision during training in May.

The department requested the privacy of the soldiers and family’s affected by Monday’s incident.

NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the five injured soldiers had been airlifted to hospital on Monday evening, according to national broadcaster ABC.

“The Northern Territory supported two injured evacuations by helicopter to Royal Darwin Hospital at about 7:30 last night and another three by plane at about 9:30 last night,” she said.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family who are obviously devastated by this loss and of course, the support of our entire community is there for all of our service personnel who will be feeling this loss immensely.”

The ABC also reported that the NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole had sent resources to the Mount Bundey training area to help with the department’s investigation into the incident.

“We can’t comment on the cause of the injury to the defence personnel but we are assisting and were helping to investigate on behalf of the coroner,” Dole said, according to the ABC.

During a 2019 inquest into the death of Challis, a 25-year-old soldier from Victoria, the coroner described the training exercise as “shambolic” and that his death had been preventable.

Challis, who had less than a year’s experience with the defence force, was shot in the head and knee while he stood behind a plywood wall during an urban attack exercise.

In May this year, Lachlan Muddle – a Special Air Service Regiment soldier – died when he fell to the ground after a mid-air collision with another paratrooper at the Jervis Bay airfield in New South Wales.