SINGAPORE: The Singapore Armed Forces has suspended its
heliborne rappelling exercises and is reviewing the system to
ensure it is entirely safe.
The move came in the wake of the death of two servicemen on
Wednesday night.
24-year-old commando First Sergeant Shiva Mohan and a foreign
serviceman, whose identity has not been released, were injured
during heliborne training at Sembawang Air Base.
They were given immediate medical attention and sent to the
Singapore General Hospital where they were pronounced dead two
hours later.
Second Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen stressed that the SAF takes
training accidents seriously and would be introducing a safety
time-out.
He said: "Safety time-out is a time whereby we give commandos
material and safety messages for themselves as well as the men that
they are leading in the training, to put more emphasis on
safety.
"These (training) incidents must strengthen our resolve..... to
look into our systems to make sure we have done everything to make
sure that training is safe.
"We want to train as realistically as possible, but we also want to
train as safely as possible." - CNA/ir
