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The Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) has excoriated Experience Co and its subsidiary Skydive Australia, which the union says has applied to the government to hire 37 cheaper overseas workers while axing its local training program. The company says it is not looking to replace local workers.
Around 70 instructors for Skydive Australia, part of Experience Co, walked off the job at eight sites around Australia over the weekend seeking better pay and conditions. It followed similar industrial action in December over stalled enterprise agreement negotiations.
Speaking to ABC’s 7:30, RAAus chair Michael Monck said that one accident does not necessarily point to wider systemic problems. It comes as the organisation faces scrutiny over training shortfalls that allegedly contributed to the deaths of 20-year-old Luke Smith and his brother and cousin.
In dramatic scenes that spread across social media, the Piper PA-28, VA-BUN, crashed on the golf course on Sydney’s Northern Beaches on 17 August 2025 following a mechanical failure, with a student pilot sustaining minor injuries and the aircraft itself suffering heavy damage.
All three occupants of the experimental Morgan Cougar Mk 1, VH-LDV – 20-year-old pilot Luke Smith; his younger brother Ben, 16; and cousin Dusty Daly, 15 – were killed when it crashed into a paddock near West Sale Airport on 16 November 2024.
Gobel Aviation (formerly Soar Aviation), which was liquidated after entering administration in late 2020, was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Victoria to have been responsible for a 2017 light plane crash that left student Edward Ripper traumatised and unable to pursue a commercial pilot career.
PROFILES
Raising the Bar in Commercial Laundry: How Rinse & Repeat Is Redefining Service for Aviation
Raising the Bar in Commercial Laundry: How Rinse & Repeat Is Redefining Service for Aviation
UPRT Australia- Transforming Aviation’s Greatest Risk into Its Greatest Asset
UPRT Australia- Transforming Aviation’s Greatest Risk into Its Greatest Asset
