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An appeal court has ruled that a course of training can amount to a ‘dangerous recreational activity” when accompanied by an element of pleasure.
James Eyles – a parachute packer in a central Queensland skydiving school – was chasing a future as a parachute camera operator.
He started a skydiving course at the Bowen school and signed up as a member of the Australian Parachute Federation. The training system was structured and disciplined. Each jump involved instructors exiting the aircraft with him, radio guidance during descent, and visual paddle signals from a ground-based target assistant to guide the final approach.
He had been taught standard landing technique, including the parachute landing roll (PLR), a method drilled into skydivers to dissipate vertical and horizontal forces safely across the body rather than through a single limb.
When he stepped out of the drop aircraft in October 2016 he had completed earlier tandem jumps, and had successfully performed two prior solo descents earlier that month, landing within metres of the target area.
On this third solo jump, everything progressed normally through freefall and canopy deployment but the descent was slightly off the designated landing zone and he came down on a gravel runway surface.
He claimed he landed legs together, knees bent, absorbing the landing but that the gravel shifted beneath him, causing a violent twist in his left leg, fracturing both the tibia and fibula.
The inevitable injury compensation claim against the school’s operator Sydney Skydiving was filed in the District Court in Bowen in January 2019.
The student alleged Sydney Skydiving has not taken adequate measures to avoid his exposure to injury from the risk that a student skydiver might land short of the target and encounter an uneven or unexpected surface.
He contended such risk was “plainly foreseeable”.
When the case came before Judge Brian Devereaux KC in June 2021, two instructors contradicted Eyles’ account of his touchdown.
Both swore to having observed him extend his right leg forward in a reaching motion, as if attempting to land upright rather than executing a controlled PLR. Video footage, while open to interpretation, supported that version.
Orthopaedic evidence described spiral fractures—classically associated with rotational forces rather than pure vertical compression. A straight, balanced landing tends to produce compressive or crush-type injuries if anything goes wrong. A twisting mechanism, by contrast, implies asymmetry: one foot taking load unevenly, rotating under force.
The trial judge concluded that Eyles did not land with legs together but instead “reached out” with his right foot moments before touchdown.
The trial judge and the appeal court accepted the the risk that the operator ought to have guarded against was pleaded in sufficiently broad terms rather than being framed more narrowly such as “poor instruction on flaring” or “misdirection onto gravel.”
But because the court accepted that Eyles extended his right leg contrary to training, the injury was attributed to his own technique, not the terrain.
The risk that had materialised in this case was thus not merely landing on gravel. Both courts agreed the real risk was landing incorrectly, a risk inherent in solo skydiving—particularly in the final flare and touchdown phase where pilot (or jumper) input is decisive.
The appeal court treated this as analogous to pilot error in aviation: even with proper systems and guidance, the individual retains ultimate control in the final execution.
That being so, there could be no liability for harm as it resulted from the materialisation of an “inherent risk” rather than poor instruction or surface hazard. CLA section 16 was engaged and rendered the operator immune from liability.
Eyles “was solely in control of his parachute and had sustained his injury by reason of having adopted an incorrect landing technique,” observed Justice David Bodice on appeal. “There was nothing that the respondent could have done to prevent the appellant injuring his leg in those circumstances”.
Further, the activity itself—solo skydiving—”retained elements of enjoyment and voluntary participation sufficient to engage the dangerous recreational activity provisions” of the CLA that also immunised the operator from all negligence whatsoever.
“There was no error in the primary judge’s conclusion that the solo jump was at least, in part, engaged in for enjoyment and pleasure. It supported the conclusion that the appellant’s harm was suffered whilst the appellant was engaged in a dangerous recreational activity ‘.
That the court found the operator had, in fact, breached its own procedures by allowing Eyles to track over the runway before final approach proved irrelevant when the statutory defences of the Civil Liability Act were engaged.
Eyles v Sydney Skydivers Pty Ltd [2022] QDC 1 Devereaux KC DCJ, 19 January 2022
Eyles v Sydney Skydivers Pty Ltd [2026] QCA 53 Mullins P, Boddice JA, Doyle JA, 27 March 2026
Categories: aircraft accident , Recreational accident