On a crisp winter afternoon, two thrillseekers held hands and skipped towards a small plane to set off on their latest adventure.
The playful and carefree moment between skydiver Alex "Alby" Welling and instructor Stephen Hoare proved poignant, belying the terror that lay ahead.
The next time the men were seen at Goulburn Airport, in southern NSW, on June 27, 2021, they were frantically dangling upside-down under the Cessna 182, their equipment snagged on a metal step.
Hoare, a 37-year-old tandem master who had jumped more than 2300 times, and Welling, a 32-year-old adrenaline-chaser, fell to their deaths in a rare skydiving accident known as a "hang-up".
The airport's owner John Ferrara and his company Goulburn Flight Training Centre were on Friday fined a total of $250,000 for workplace safety breaches that led to the men's deaths.
A lengthy and highly-technical trial revealed a series of moments that sealed the men's fate, including the unauthorised installation of the step, lax safety procedures and a perilous attempt to save them mid-air.
Flying at 12,000 feet, it was an ominous bang that first alerted pilot Jim Czerwinski to Hoare and Welling's failed launch.
Czerwinski glanced towards the open door and saw a tangled Welling looking up at him but the men could not talk over the fierce roar of the wind.
Initially "pretty rattled", Czerwinski told the court he took the plane down to 8000 feet, where the air would be warmer for the trapped skydivers.
After reporting the emergency to authorities, he grabbed a hook knife stored in the cabin and used one hand to try to cut the men free.
Czerwinski then took both hands off the controls and flung his legs out the door to reach the stranded pair but the aircraft violently flipped 90 degrees to the right.
The immense force sent Czerwinski floating through the aircraft and he dropped the knife while desperately scrambling to stop himself falling out.
When he got back to his seat, he contacted ground staff and told them to drive a car on the runway while he flew low and slow above.
He told the crew to grab the men as he swooped over the runway, a rescue attempt Judge Andrew Scotting later found intensified an already "extremely dangerous" situation.
On the ground, Welling's close friend Nick Amoroso was unaware of the chaos in the sky as he stood on a viewing platform near the runway.
Amoroso, Welling and another friend had booked in with "Adrenalin Skydive" at the flight centre for a day of fun and freedom, as a long stretch of COVID-19 restrictions eased.
"Petrified" of heights, Amoroso was due to watch Welling's dive before joining him in the air for a debut jump later that afternoon.
The tattooed and quietly-spoken mechanic was fragile with emotion in court as he recalled watching the landing of another skydiver, Theo Miras.
He described being quickly ushered inside the airport by Miras, who had gone up with the others to film their jump on a GoPro camera.
A shaken Miras told Amoroso the men were "hung up". Miras had jumped first and there was nothing he could do to help.
"When you hear 'hung up' ... I thought they were stuck in a tree," Amoroso told the NSW District Court in Sydney in September 2025.
Amoroso said he watched as the Cessna came into view, flying very low as airport staff drove a four-wheel-drive along the runway.
"I noticed Alby and Steve were stuck to the aircraft, hanging upside-down," Mr Amoroso told the judge, his voice heavy with lingering shock.
"The plane was trying to get low enough and there was a dude on the four-wheel drive trying to get hold of Steve and Alby.
"That was unsuccessful a couple of times."
When the rescue attempt failed and Czerwinski returned to a higher altitude, Welling and Hoare came loose at about 100 metres.
Hoare released his reserve parachute but it did not open in time and the men fell to earth.
There were no signs of life when paramedics arrived.
It was Czerwinski who had designed and installed the step, with the approval of his boss, John Ferrara.
The step, made from a piece of folded sheet metal and fitted inside a U-shaped bracket, was supposed to help skydivers launch.
But its haphazard design created a treacherous S-bend that would have made it nearly impossible for the men to free themselves.
"The step presented an obvious and dangerous snag hazard," Judge Scotting said.
The judge found Ferrara knew the installation of the step required expert approval and an engineering order before the Cessna could fly.
There was varying evidence about conversations between Ferrara, his son and Czerwinski about who was responsible for getting the order.
But Ferrara was a boss who worked at the airport seven days a week - doing everything from dumping rubbish to making executive decisions - and he could have grounded the plane until the step was approved.
"It would have taken very minimal effort to secure the Cessna and remove the keys to prevent its use," Judge Scotting said.
The court also found the business failed to enforce "buddy checks" on skydivers' equipment before every flight, a simple measure that could have identified a loose strap on Welling's gear.
The events of that afternoon left even the most seasoned professionals rattled.
The risk of hang-ups in skydiving remains very low, with more than three million successful dives worldwide in 2020, the court heard.
But Hoare's colleague, tandem master Kyle Nicholson, told the court he was so disturbed he gave up skydiving on the spot, having performed over 3700 jumps.
While Welling's family were too traumatised to read victim impact statements at a hearing in early April, Hoare's father Frank called for a coronial inquest to prevent similar accidents.
In a remarkable gesture of grace, he said he had no animosity for Ferrara or Czerwinski.
"In the end, there was no intent," Hoare said quietly.
The thought of the two men skipping, laughing and embracing life in their final hour brings the family some comfort.
"This image fills me with joy," Hoare's sister Fiona said in a statement read to court.
"It is the example of the man my brother was."
