MOD accepts responsibility for injuries to four Army officer cadets in Germany crash

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has accepted responsibility for injuries – in one case serious – to four Royal Military Academy Sandhurst officer cadets caused by a road accident at a US Army base in southern Germany.

On 21 November 2019, two British Army MAN military support vehicles were in convoy driving through the Hohenfels Training Area in Bavaria and, as the driver of one of the six-tonne trucks lost control, it hit an embankment and rolled over.

Among those on board the stricken vehicle were 11 officer cadets on the penultimate day of a field training exercise –  Sandhurst students train in Bavaria three times a year.

Four of the cadets were injured, one of them seriously. He required surgery in a German hospital before being evacuated by air for further treatment and rehabilitation at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The £250,000 lorry was irreparably damaged and the driver was later discovered to be inexperienced and was court-martialled.

The seriously injured officer cadet, who now serves in the British Army, attended his Sandhurst graduation ceremony in a wheelchair.

Among the Service Inquiry's key findings, was that the principal contributory factor in the incident was poor supervision.

Also blamed were failures in command and control and medical support, delays in reporting the incident to the Royal Military Police, breaches of the Army's Trauma Risk Management policy, and the failure to identify the driver's inexperience.

In the Service Inquiry Report, the Ministry of Defence accepted responsibility and said a claim for damages is pending.