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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 qualified parachute packer employed at Shute Harbour airstrip – was chasing a future as a skydiving camera operator.
He started a structured “accelerated freefall” training course at Sydney Skydivers’ Bowen location and signed up as a member of the Australian Parachute Federation.
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 the gravel runway surface.
He claimed he landed legs together, knees bent, absorbing the landing impact but that the gravel shifted beneath him, causing a violent twist in his left leg, fracturing both tibia and fibula.
The inevitable injury compensation claim was filed in the District Court in Bowen in January 2019.
The student alleged Sydney Skydivers had 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”.
Judge Greg Lynham concluded that the operator had breached its duty of care to Eyles by permitting him to fly over the runway before directing him to make his base and final leg turns which led to him landing on the gravel runway.
That finding proved however, to be the only score that Eyles was able to make in the entire contest.
Two instructors contradicted his account of the 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 inconclusive, did not contradict that version.
Orthopaedist Dr Cook described the spiral fractures Eyles sustained as being 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. In his view the jumper’s injuries were consistent with one limb taking load unevenly and rotating under force.
The trial judge reasoned from all that evidence, Eyles had not landed with legs together but instead “reached out” with his right foot moments before touchdown.
That allowed him to arrive at “the clear inference” that the injury was not caused by any breach on the defendant’s part but rather by him using the incorrect landing technique, a case that was – in the judge’s view – a risk inherent in solo skydiving.
This led to him concluding “causation” had not – having regards to Civil Liability Act s 11(1)(a) – been proved.
Eyles had also claimed for breaches of ACL statutory guarantees under ss 60 and 61(1), but not under s 61(2).
That the jumper had impliedly made known to the service supplier his “purpose” in acquiring its services – to gain qualification for solo skydiving – was accepted but the judge concluded neither guarantee had been breached given the injury had been caused by his own incorrect landing technique.
Although not essential to the trial judge’s dismissal of the claim, he made a precautionary finding that the defence in Civil Liability Act section 16 was engaged to render the operator immune from liability for all harm resulting from the materialisation of such an “inherent risk”.
On appeal Justice David Bodice – with whom the other justices concurred – agreed that Eyles “was solely in control of his parachute and had sustained his injury by reason of having adopted an incorrect landing technique.”
“There was nothing that the respondent could have done to prevent the appellant injuring his leg in those circumstances”.
Perhaps the most notable ruling of all at trial – one with which the appeal judges agreed – was that because the activity itself—solo skydiving—was “at least, in part, engaged in for enjoyment and pleasure” and not connected to his existing employment, the injuries were sustained while the participant was taking part in a dangerous recreational activity.
Judge Lynham had reasoned that notwithstanding the plaintiff had been undergoing the training to find employment in the industry “it was obvious that he was also undertaking [the course] because he gained enjoyment or leisure from skydiving”.
The parachute school was thus further immunised from the consequences of all injury related negligence by operation of CLA section 19.
The dangerous recreational activity ruling in an occupational context is concerning. It is though, obiter dictum and it should be noted that neither court was referred to the line of TPA cases distinguishing “recreational services”.
The decision of Judge Lynham of 4 September 2025 in the District Court at Bowen is unreported.
Eyles v Sydney Skydivers Pty Ltd [2026] QCA 53 Mullins P, Boddice JA, Doyle JA, 27 March 2026
Categories: aircraft accident , Recreational accident