Marine officer blames bad information for sinking tragedy

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Marine officer blames bad information for sinking tragedy

By JULIE WATSON
January 8, 2022

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A Marine Corps battalion commander testified Friday that in retrospect he would have halted the exercise that killed nine of his Marines whose amphibious assault vehicle sank off the Southern California coast but at the time he did not have accurate information to make such a decision.

Lt. Col. Michael J. Regner said his decisions were based in part on what other commanders told him, including that all the Marines had completed their swim certifications and that the aging vehicles they were in had been fixed and were ready for the mission.

He said he was also unaware that the Navy had changed plans that day and did not launch a safety boat.

“Had I known that at the time, I would have said ‘No we’re not going to go into the ocean without a safety boat,’” Regner said.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-90c08b3b1c9de4beec67d53630d4a95a

[Sherman A1]

1. What knucklehead decided to not have a safety boat launched?

And one would think that the other questions raised in the article would not even have to be considered as everyone should know how to swim and vehicles need to be ready to go. This incident has multiple failures by to many people involved.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Yes, a failure of leadership on many levels.

[Irish_Dem]

2. "investigation found inadequate training, shabby maintenance and poor judgment

by leaders led to the July 30, 2020, sinking of the amphibious assault vehicle in one of the deadliest Marine training accidents in decades." (9 Marines were killed.)

[exboyfil]

4. My Marine ROTC instructor explained ASSUME to me

After I screwed up. Seems some of these Marines didn't get that lesson.

[MyMission]

5. This is FUBAR, and tragic

They're yanking on this chain of command, and others, to find the bad links.

Why weren't all crew trained or certified swimmers, which includes underwater maneuvers?
It seems this battalion commander wasn't in charge of that portion, and was told and assumed they were or would be ready? He had to trust his co-commanders and chain of command.

And the same with the vehicles, someone else was responsible for that, and Regner was trusting them to provide functioning equipment.

And he wasn't told the Navy wasn't launching a safety boat, but someone knew.

Hopefully they'll develop new protocols.
Whenever there's a training accident, they do try to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[DashOneBravo]

6. Awful training accident

It’s always paid in blood & souls.