Navy Training Safety: High-Risk Training Can Be Safer
NSIAD-91-112
Published: Jun 26, 1991. Publicly Released: Jul 09, 1991.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed selected Navy high-risk training courses, focusing on the Navy's efforts to improve training safety.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should explore the development of psychological screening devices for all students and instructors in high-risk training to determine their suitability to participate in that training. |
The Navy has developed a screening instrument to be administered to instructors and students of high-risk training courses and has issued procedures for psychological screening.
|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should enforce and monitor administrative processing controls aimed at ensuring that a student determined to be medically unqualified for high-risk training cannot reenter training until cleared by proper medical authorities. |
CNET has made local commanders responsible for tracking student medical status and made it a specific inspection item for the Training Performance Evaluation Board (TPEB).
|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should enforce compliance with CNET requirements to evaluate instructors of high-risk courses quarterly and require training commands to increase the coverage of their nonclassroom activities in their instructor evaluations. |
CNET established a review of instructor evaluations as a TPEB inspection item and promulgated an instruction requiring corresponding coverage of non-classroom instruction in instructor evaluations.
|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should revise student critique form requirements to ensure that the forms used in all high-risk training courses are unbiased, ask specific rather than general questions, solicit student feedback on nonclassroom activities, individual instructors, and unsafe training conditions or practices, and can be completed anonymously. |
CNET issued a new instruction (CNET Instruction 1540.6D) on student critiques.
|
| Office of the Chief of Naval Operations | The Chief of Naval Operations should direct fleet commanders to adhere to the minimum requirements specified in the Catalogue of Navy Training Courses when sending personnel to high-risk training courses, and that they send only volunteers to those courses. |
The Chief of Naval Operations has redirected fleet commanders to ensure that all candidates for high-risk training meet all stated prerequisites, including true volunteer status if applicable.
|
| Office of the Chief of Naval Operations | The Chief of Naval Operations should strengthen the role of the Naval Safety Center by requiring training commands to report all high-risk training mishaps that occur in individualized and specialized training and require any type of trained medical attention, regardless of training or work time lost, to the center. |
CNET Instruction 1500.2B now requires all training-related first-aid, medical treatment, and lost time mishaps to be reported. The Naval Safety Center now requires course identification numbers on training mishap reports to track and analyze trends.
|
| Office of the Chief of Naval Operations | The Chief of Naval Operations should strengthen the role of the Naval Safety Center by requiring the center to devise a system to analyze high-risk training mishaps for causes and trends and to share the results of those analyses on a regular basis with the Chief of Naval Education and Training. |
The Naval Safety Center has devised a system allowing it to analyze training mishaps by course.
|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should require subordinate commands to: (1) keep thorough and accurate records of all high-risk training mishaps; (2) evaluate them for trends that may indicate unsafe training policies, practices, or equipment; (3) initiate corrective actions when trends indicate they are warranted; and (4) regularly report results of mishap analyses and corrective actions to senior commands. |
Oversight of training mishap reporting has been increased. Training activities are now required to submit a quarterly report of reportable and recordable training-related illnesses and injuries.
|
| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should have the pool competency drill conducted in the SEAL training examined by medical diving experts to determine the reasons for the relatively high incidence of shallow-water blackouts and revise procedures to reduce the risk of those incidents. |
CNET directed diving experts to determine the reasons for the relatively high incidence of shallow-water blackout. Schools have been directed to discontinue all training that teaches hyperventilation as a means to decrease the urge to breathe.
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| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should direct that any exercises that do not contribute to training objectives, particularly those that appear to involve unacceptable risks, be discontinued, and that all high-risk training evolutions be included in the course curriculum and approved by higher authority before they are conducted. |
CNET directed course curriculum model managers to review course exercises that involve high risk. CNET also reemphasized in Instruction 1500.20B that only the approved curriculum is to be conducted.
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| Naval Education and Training Command | The Chief of Naval Education and Training should reconsider the decision to shorten the surface rescue swimmer course. |
CNET reviewed the curriculum of the surface rescue swimmers training and it has been revised accordingly.
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Full Report
Topics
Accident preventionEducation program evaluationInternal controlsMonitoringNaval personnelNaval trainingOccupational safetyReporting requirementsSafety regulationSafety standards