SANDF to Investigate Cause of Soldiers' Injuries
There are indications that a 20mm round exploded during a training exercise held at the South African Army Combat Training Centre in Lohatlha on Monday.
This resulted in one soldier seriously inuring his hand and being taken to 3 Military Hospital in Bloemfontein, where he is undergoing rehabilitation treatment on her hand.
The second soldier suffered minor injuries to his thighs and was treated and discharged from the sickbay at CTC Lohatlha.
Last year a similar incident occurred during a training exercise at the same training centre, where nine soldiers died and 15 were injured.
After an investigation is was found that mechanical failure had led to the incident which occurred in October.
During a training exercise a 35mm MK5 (124) Anti Aircraft Gun's pin sheared and disengaged the control mechanism, which rendered the gun uncontrollable when it was fired.
The investigation also found that out of the 48 guns in the South African Army fleet, ten had sheared pins.
The manufacturer, Original Equipment Manufacture (OEM), had not communicated that it had had problems with the gun to the SANDF at the time of purchasing the equipment.
It was established that OEM also did not communicated hardware changes to safety drill or user drills to the South Africa.
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26 Mars 2008 à 12:49 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
