Accidents are part and parcel of the military training and
operations. It is regrettable that the SAF has so much accidents in
the past year or so, but they have to learn the lessons from all
this and move on, hopefully for the better.
Even the most established navies experienced such accidents from
time to time..., read the USN and RN.
For eg, the RN has had accidents with their SSN and frigates either
running aground or scrapping their hull. The most famous would be
the HMS Nottingham that ran aground off Australia, and has to be
piggybacked back to the UK. For the USN, remember USS Greenville,
the SSN that rammed the japanese trawler/training vessel, resulting
in a loss of lives on board the japanese vessel.
The question is did we learn our lessons, and how do we improve?
Just like the USN learned from the experience of the horrendous
accident of the cruiser USS Belknap resulting from a collision with
the aircraft carrier USS John F Kennedy back in Nov'75.
That collision caused more than 15000 gallons of jet fuel being
spilled onto the much smaller cruiser, creating a huge fire that
melted away the Aluminium superstructure, and high casualties on
the ship's crew. Well, the USN learnt the lessons of this tragic
accident-the result, use of Aluminium was abandoned with
practically the whole ship being made of steel- a good example
being the Arleigh Burke class, which one of them, USS Cole, even
survived a terrorist attack.
Lets hope Mindef learn from all these accidents, as well as those
of other countries... 
