For a generation, accidents have proved far more deadly than combat or terrorism. Since 1980, more than 20,000 military personnel have died in accidents while fewer than 1,000 have perished in battle, Defense Department figures show.
By its nature, military service is dangerous. Those who enlist do so with the expectation that they may be put in harm's way.
Nevertheless, the military had been steadily reducing its losses due to accidents, cutting its annual fatality figure by 56% between 1991 and 1998. But the reductions stopped the following year, even as private sector companies with high-risk activities, such as commercial airlines, continued to make impressive strides in reducing accidents. With the military rates climbing again, the magnitude of the losses has drawn concern at the highest levels. In May, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld challenged the heads of the services to cut the number and rate of accidents by half within two years.
"World-class organizations do not tolerate preventable accidents," he said. "These goals are achievable.... We owe no less to the men and women who defend our nation."
Rumsfeld spoke on a day when four Marines died in Iraq in the accidental crash of their CH-46 helicopter into a canal and a fifth drowned trying to rescue them. But officials say the impetus for the secretary's initiative predated the war.
In response, the Pentagon created the Defense Safety Oversight Council -- a group including senior Army, Navy and Air Force officials -- to track accidents, determine why they are increasing and make recommendations. It can propose any steps it deems necessary, right up to grounding an aircraft as too dangerous, Defense officials said.
"Every accident that happens is another flag for us to address root causes," said Joseph J. Angello Jr., a Pentagon official who helps direct military readiness and serves as the council's executive secretary.
Rumsfeld's target would be ambitious in peacetime, but it is particularly challenging amid continuing warfare. Former Defense Department safety experts welcome Rumsfeld's attention to an issue that has long taken a back seat, but they express skepticism about the Pentagon's willingness to change a mind-set that accepts accidents as a cost of business.
