What's Behind the Stark Rise in U.S. Military Accidents?
Collisions at sea and aviation accidents point to an overtaxed force.
By Kyle Mizokami
USNI
December 6, 2018: Yesterday, a Marine F/A-18 Super Hornet collided with a KC-130 refueling tanker during an exercise off the coast of Japan. Both planes went down. Two pilots were recovered from the Hornet, but one has now died. American and Japanese forces are still searching for the crew of five that was on board the tanker.
Back in April, we reported on what was behind the unsettling rise in military training accidents across all the branches of the armed forces:
The U.S. military has experienced a rash of military accidents in the air and at sea, with aircraft-related crashes up nearly 40 percent since 2013. From destroyers colliding with commercial vessels in the Western Pacific to a downed Harrier jump jet in Djibouti, the last several months have seen several highly publicized accidents, many of which involved fatalities. At least one investigation has correlated the rise in accidents with defense budget cuts.
According to an investigation by the Military Times, accidents involving manned military aircraft rose nearly 40 percent between 2013 and 2017. In the last three weeks alone, six military accidents have killed 16 people. Between 2013 and 2017, 133 were killed in accidents. The latest incident involved the crash of an Apache Guardian attack helicopter at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Both pilots were killed.
The U.S. military divides accidents into three categories: A, B, and C. Class "C" accidents involve damage between $50,000 and $500,000, including minor injuries to military personnel. Class "B" accidents involve damage between $500,000 and $2 million and permanent or partial disability to one individual or more minor injuries to three individuals. Class "A" accidents involve damages of more than $2 million, loss of the aircraft, and a permanent disability or death. The Military Times database covers everything from a crushed foot suffered onboard a C-17A Globemaster in 2017 to a 2010 Army helicopter crash in Puerto Rico that resulted in the loss of six Army personnel and their UH-72 Lakota helicopter.
The guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald after a collision that killed seven sailors and injured three others.
Kazuhiro NogiGetty Images
Although the Times investigation doesn't include naval accidents at sea, the U.S. Navy also experienced a rash of accidents unprecedented in modern times. A trio of separate accidents in 2017 involving U.S. Navy surface warships sidelined two guided missile destroyers and a cruiser, killing 17 sailors and injuring eight more.
The Budget Control Act of 2011, commonly known as "the Sequestration," triggered automatic defense spending cuts in 2013. As a result of the cuts, defense spending across the board was reduced. It's hard to separate correlation from causation here, but the evidence certainly suggests the cuts had the unanticipated effect of more and more dangerous accidents. Cutting procurement results in older, more difficult to maintain aircraft staying in service longer. Cutting maintenance makes aircraft more likely to be unavailable for flight operations and increases the chance an undiagnosed issue will cause problems. Cutting training leaves aircraft and ship crews less effective at their jobs, especially during unexpected situations.
At the same time, unlike the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, accidents in the U.S. Army's helicopter force held steady during the same time period. DefenseNews reports the Army's accident rate actually dropped after the Sequestration was enacted. It's not entirely clear why the Army, which also had budget cuts forced on it, was successful in holding the line on accidents.
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