3 Soldiers Killed, 1 Hurt in Accident at Ft. Irwin

A mortar round exploded prematurely during a training exercise Friday at Ft. Irwin, killing three soldiers and wounding a fourth in the latest live-fire accident to hit the U.S. military.

The soldiers from Fort Riley, Kan., were killed by the 120-millimeter round shortly before 2:30 a.m., said Maj. Rob Ali, a spokesman for the base, set 120 miles east of Los Angeles near Barstow. The wounded soldier was not seriously hurt.

The names of the dead were withheld pending notification of relatives.

There have been 32 accidental on-duty Army fatalities since Oct. 1, according to military statistics. There were 28 during the same period last year.

“We go out of our way to ensure the safety of these people during training, but human error being what it is, we’re bound to have accidents no matter how many safeguards we put in place,” said Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.), a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Fatal accidents in other branches of the military are also up slightly. There have been nine accidental on-duty Air Force fatalities so far this fiscal year, compared with five during the same period last year.

There have been 24 Marine and 14 Navy on-duty accidental fatalities so far this year, compared with 37 for the Marines and 20 for the Navy in all of fiscal 2001. A breakdown of the 2001 data wasn’t available.

On Thursday, a Navy helicopter crashed on a Sierra Nevada ridge in Central California, killing two crew members. Last week, two soldiers at Ft. Drum in New York were killed and 13 were injured when errant artillery shells hit near their mess tent.

On Feb. 23, a soldier from Ft. Bragg, N.C., was shot and killed and a second was wounded when they tried to disarm a sheriff’s deputy they thought was participating in their training exercise.

“I think the central reality here is pretty clear: War and simulated war are by definition unpredictable activities.” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute. “They’re risky not just because someone is shooting at you, but because anything could happen next.”