Last year, two inductees were killed when two battle ships collided in Sollenkroka outside of Stockholm. Two weeks ago it happened again; a soldier was shot in the head at the elite affiliates K3 in Arvidsjaur. Is there a connection between the tough training and accidents? And why is it so hard to find someone responsible when conscripts are killed?
– When it happens this kind of accident, I think that I as a mother have the right to know what caused it, says Erika Thelning, mother of Jens that turned 20 years old on the day his life ended.
The reason for the accident in Sollenkroka was that the boats drove too fast and too close together. But amfibie regiment had, unlike other units in the Navy, no regulations about speed and distance between the boats.
In the boat four people sat. None of them looked forward until it was too late. Yet no one has yet been identified as responsible for the accident.
– The accident should not be done. It advised the best conditions. That no one would have the responsibility is incomprehensible to us, says Lennart Persson, father of Simon, who was killed in the accident.
– There were no rules or directives of the amfibie regiment. Everything was handed to a “good judgment on the lake” of these relatively young boys, justifies prosecutor Ola Sjöstrand its decision.
But Uppdrag Granskning can show that those who had responsibility for the boats day of the accident broke the rules and directives. And that the same seems to be the case in several accidents defense elite unit in recent years.
In 2003, four serious accidents were reported with just combat boats. The conclusion was that “too little education makes the risk of incidents imminent” and that there are “weaknesses in instructors’ training and doubt regarding the organization and training of boatchefs students.”
Despite the education continues as it always has.
We have had education in ten years and I do not feel that it is correct says the Navy’s top officer, Anders Grenstad.
But Jens mother Erika Thelning not share his positive view on amfibieregiment activity.
– I believe that this particular little machostyle that the regiment has and the fast boats and the toughness that surrounds the whole business might not make it surround the safety around the boats as they should.
SVT2 Tuesday, November 8, 2005 20:00 in Uppdrag Granskning.