WASHINGTON — Of the more than 3,600 reported on-duty, non-combat accidents involving Special Operations forces (SOF) personnel which occurred in fiscal years 2012 through 2022, about 80% of the mishaps happened during training.
About 40% of the total reported training accidents occurred in two high-risk training areas, parachute training and combat dive training.
And over 80% of training accidents were reported as being due to human error.
"When you look at these human errors, some of the factors that were really present in most of those cases was a failure to adhere to training policies as well as complacency," said Diana Moldafsky, Acting Director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Defense Capabilities and Management team.
Data analyzed in a new GAO report pointed to an average of 259 Special Ops accidents per year.
Over the period examined, the GAO found 48 deaths that occurred in non-combat accidents.
Moldafsky, in an interview with 13News Now, said Special Operations Command should more closely study data on training incidents and spend more time observing high-risk, noncombat operations in order to reduce the likelihood of accidents.
"High-risk training is recognized as one of the areas that has the potential for putting people in harm. The goal is to mitigate those risks as much as possible," she said.
The GAO made six recommendations, which you can read about more in-depth in the report. The summary of their recommendations:
- analyze safety data to identify high-risk training areas
- reevaluate the training assessment program
- establish milestones for the four SOF service component commands to complete updates to their policies that include Special Operations Command's high-risk training oversight requirements