The news of one of our sons’ death, Commando 1st Sgt Shiva, and the resultant news reports brought sadness to me. It was a real pity that this young chap, about to be married, strapping youth, one of our elite protectors with a bright career, had his light snuffed out due to a training accident.
For those not in the know, Commando 1st Sgt Shiva Mohan died in training on 13th July 2005, when he fell (with another soldier) while rappelling from a heli hovering 20m from the ground. When news broke, reports were disheartening, with reports on his bright career and impending marriage. Even during his wake, shouts of “Commando!” could be heard from the flats, a call of respect and thanks to Shiva.
A soldier’s duty is to protect the country and its people. War is such that people die and get killed. While it’s sad to fall in the battlefield, that’s the accepted responsibility any career soldier shoulders. However, to die in training is totally ignominous and unnecessary.
What causes death during training? Lax training regimes? Poorly maintained equipment? Lax attitudes? Freak accident aka Act of God?
We can rule out lax attitudes. 1st Sgt Shiva was a highly disciplined commando. Considering his age at 24 and reckoning a signup to regular service at 21, we’re talking 1 promotion a year. That’s tough. Also, a second unknown soldier fell together with Shiva, on a different rope.
Lax training? Unlikely, since we were training with a foreign country’s troops, supposedly on a joint-exercise. Both professionally and politically, our armed forces will be at their utmost best.
How about freak accident? Well, the only likely scenario of a freak accident would be a freak wind that might cause the helicopter to lose control. This is highly unlikely as a heli at autohover cannot be pushed by wind, unless we’re talking hurricane force winds. Would the wind then blow the rappellers off their ropes? Impossible, since they’re secured by their harnesses and the autohover downward blast will prevent this.
That really only leaves equipment. Frankly, during a rappel, a number of thing can go wrong. It’s a risky manoeuvre, similar to say mountain climbing or skydiving. Any number of individual and independent parts could fail, causing a catastrophic failure. As such one would immediately look at the carabiner, the harness and the rappel anchor. For both soldiers to fall at the same time, the prime suspect is the rappel anchor which secures the ropes to the heli, since it’s near impossible for 2 separate carabiners or harnesses to fail at the same time.
I really hope MINDEF comes clean on this episode, just like how the Hu EnHuai case went down. Transparency is the buzzword of the people now, what with so many covered up issues going on now. For starters they can tell us where this unidentified soldier who fell with Shiva came from.
