Army Officer Died During Training Exercise Due to Faulty Vehicle Alarm

An Army officer was killed during a training exercise on Salisbury Plain when a Warrior armored vehicle, equipped with a faulty alarm system, reversed over him, an inquest has heard. Second Lt. Max George, 26, died in the incident.

The inquest was told that a built-in alarm system designed to signal an alert with a noise and light when the rear doors were open failed to activate because a wire was broken. Colonel Watson stated that if this alarm had functioned, the driver would have almost certainly stopped.

The vehicle involved in the incident was stationary for between 38 and 43 seconds following the collision, during which time soldiers shouted warnings and horns sounded. A stop order was issued at 10:25 AM, halting the exercise.

Alarms had previously been installed on Warrior vehicles after two fatal incidents in the 1990s. Col. Watson acknowledged that several faults with the armored vehicles were known, but these did not necessitate taking the vehicle out of service.

Further details revealed that the specific model, the FV-511, was not typically used for disembarking troops or close combat training. The student commander had primarily trained on the FV-510, a variant of the vehicle used for platoons. Consequently, the crew and service personnel within the 5 Rifles unit were not extensively familiar with the FV-511 and its operational differences from the FV-510.