Human error blamed in deaths of 7 Marines during training

CNN ^ | Wed May 29, 2013 | Barbara Starr

[The KG9 Kid]

(CNN) -- Human error is to blame for a mortar round explosion that killed seven U.S. Marines and injured eight other service members during a training exercise in Nevada this year, the Marines said on Wednesday.

An investigation of the March 18 incident at Hawthorne Army Depot revealed that "the Marines employing one of the mortars did not follow correct procedures, resulting in the detonation of a high explosive round at the mortar position," the Marines said in a statement.

"The investigation also determined that the mortar section had not conducted appropriate preparatory training leading up to" the nighttime training session, the Marines said.

The mortar system itself functioned properly, the investigation determined.

[The KG9 Kid]

I'd already learned a few weeks back from some scuttlebutt that the cause of the accident were new Marines on their first night fire exercise that got confused switching between illumination and HE missions, and they double-stacked a round while the gun was in manual trigger mode and the HE round's fuse was set to impact detonation.

They'd evidently dropped in an impact-fused HE round, it didn't fire (as expected) because the gun was set to only fire when manually triggered. They called rounds complete, then later went on to the illumination mission while the unfired HE round was still in the tube. When the dropped the illum round, it didn't fire, so the gunner pulled the trigger...

[The KG9 Kid]

Thread from March:

7 Marines killed during explosion at Nevada's Hawthorne Army Depot

[txnativegop]

May the families of these Marines find solace for the loss they have experienced.

Rest in Peace Marines

[Half Vast Conspiracy]

I thought Harry Reid already confirmed that this was caused by lack of funding.

Just like the tornado in OK and the collapsed bridge in WA.

[bboop]

Oh, isn’t that too bad.

[ken5050]

Three careers down the crapper..can't tell from the article if it WAS indeed a lack of proper training, or rather a case of military circular reasoning..simply because the incident occurred, it must therefore be due to improper training/supervision, ( and someone must take the blame for the 7 tragic deaths...IOW..accidents can never just happen..

[SVTCobra03]

Oh, isn’t that too bad.

Would you care to explain your comment?

[Dick Vomer]

when 7 people die, it may be an accident... but somebody is responsible for that accident. Especially in the Marine Corps. Same as a ship that runs aground. Just sad if that was the case. That’s why “attention to detail” is literally POUNDED into your brain housing group from day one. Just a sad thing all around.

[The KG9 Kid]

One other thing I'd heard is that the mortar pits out were too close together at the range they were on -- that's intended to mitigate casualties in precisely this type of event. Instead, the detonation killed several of the crew members at the next gun positions over.

That's part of why they thrashed the whole chain of command.

[DCBryan1]

sniff.....

[ltc8k6]

I was under the impression that fuses aren’t actually set until the round leaves the tube.

[ken5050]

Look, I still have the scars on my hand and face from an "incident" on the grenade range at Quantico in 1968. Somebody a few pits over just froze, and several of us were very lucky..but it was an accident.

To take the points you both make, let's say that range had been in sue for many years, configured exactly the same way, and what, tens of thousands of Marines had gone through the course, with exactly the same training standards and specifications, with nary ONE fatality..and now..all of a sudden, it's a command failure due to improper training and leadership? It may be, but we don't know..if we create a culture of zero-tolerance for training incidents..in which the price for such an event is your career, then it's gonna end up costing many more lives in combat..you train like you fight, you fight like you trained..

[SampleMan]

I was under the impression that fuses aren’t actually set until the round leaves the tube.

Not precisely. Yes, there is an inertia trigger to allow the round to get safely away before the firing train is aligned; however, placing another round on top of that fuse could (and apparently did) defeat that safety mechanism by providing inertia and contact simultaneously. It could also have simply caused the fusing to mechanically fail.

[DCBryan1]

Same here. I assumed that even though it was an impact fuse that it had to attain a certain altitude or spin in order to ultimately arm the fuse?

[Born to Conserve]

Seem like a mistake that is too easy to make. I’d call that a system designer failure, not an operator failure.

[bboop]

It is too bad that they were young and didn’t probably pay enough attention to their training to do their jobs correctly and carefully. Spoken as a mom.

[ottbmare]

Your remark sounded gratuitously snarky and dismissive. You write "Spoken as a mom"--do you speak as the mother of a U.S. Marine? Do you know what the training of young Marines is like? Realistically, is there ANY way at all that you could know that these young men "didn't probably pay enough attention to their training to do their jobs correctly and carefully"? Unless you have some direct experience, as some Freepers upstream on this thread do, perhaps it would be best to refrain from saying "Oh, too bad" in that insultingly dismissive manner, with all associated self-righteous implications.

People are dead. Show some respect.

[DCBryan1]

Sounds like your disdain for the armed forces didn’t get left behind upon your conversion to conservatism. That is what I read into your posting.