Special operations forces should more closely study data on training incidents and spend more time observing high-risk, noncombat operations to better mitigate accidents involving elite troops, a federal watchdog found in a study published Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.. (K. Kassens/U.S. Army photo)

Special Operations Command should more closely study data on training incidents and spend more time observing high-risk, noncombat operations to better mitigate accidents involving its elite forces, a federal watchdog found in a study published Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office found recent efforts by SOCOM to implement increased safety scrutiny for high-risk training operations have been constrained by fiscal shortfalls and limited by the command’s own definitions of high-risk training operations. GAO, in the new report, recommended SOCOM analyze safety data to reassess its most dangerous training operations and reevaluate how it assesses risky training.

The military has relied on special operations forces in recent decades — especially in the Global War on Terrorism campaign, where elite U.S. forces have fought near constantly in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Special operations officials have long said the tough, combat-like training conditions were the best way to build the elite troops needed to carry out the U.S. military’s toughest — often secretive — operations around the globe.

The active-duty special operations community includes some 67,500 troops, including Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Air Force pararescue forces and combat controllers, and Marine Raiders, among others, according to the GAO.

Between 2012 and 2022, the GAO found more than 3,600 noncombat accidents involving special operators, with an average of 258 reported training accidents per year with at least minor injuries or more than $20,000 of military equipment damage. Accident reports ranged from a low of 120 in 2020, when training was constrained by the coronavirus pandemic, to a high of 402 accidents in 2015, the GAO found. Among all those incidents, there were about 86 major accidents among special operators — defined as having caused permanent, partial disabilities, inpatient care for three or more individuals, or more than $500,000 of damage. There were 48 training deaths during that decade.

Their training could be safer, the GAO found in its latest report entitled, “Special Operations Forces: Additional Oversight Could Help Mitigate High-Risk Training Accidents.” The watchdog said the Defense Department agreed with the recommendations it made to improve high-risk training for special operators.

During the roughly two-year study, GAO analysts scrutinized accident data for special operations forces from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps during fiscal years 2012 through 2022, according to the report. The analysts also reviewed special operations training, risk management efforts and safety documents and interviewed defense officials associated with the special operations community.

The congressional watchdog found parachute and combat dive training to be the riskiest operations for special operators outside of a combat zone, with accidents during those two activities accounting for roughly 40% of training incidents during the decade that they analyzed.

The GAO also found most accidents — some 86% — were the result of “human error,” primarily from “failure to adhere to training standards and complacency, overconfidence or indiscipline.” Equipment or material failure was cited in only about 3% of reported incidents, and environmental factors accounted for less than 3% of accidents, including none of the fatalities in special operations training from 2012 to 2022.

SOCOM included parachute and combat dive training among seven categories that it designated “high-risk” for training in a 2022 overhaul of its training safety measures, the GAO said. The other categories that SOCOM officials deemed high-risk for training were joint terminal attack controller, mountain, sniper, urban combat and vertical lift operations.

Those high-risk training operations were designated to receive more oversight to ensure safety measures are followed, and SOCOM officials told the GAO that they were identified based on “common-sense interpretation” of training risk. But the GAO, in its report, questioned the designation for some of those categories.

“Some training areas designated by SOCOM as high-risk, such as sniper, had very few reported accidents while other training areas that SOCOM has not designated as high-risk, such as tactical vehicles training, had many more reported accidents,” the GAO analysts wrote.

Sniper training only saw five reported incidents from 2012 to 2022, including no serious accidents or fatalities, the GAO wrote. Meanwhile, special operators were involved in 83 tactical vehicle training accidents, including 12 serious incidents that resulted in 10 fatalities, the analysts wrote.

The analysts suggested SOCOM reconsider the categories that it has labeled “high risk,” and base its decisions on “an analysis of negative safety trends.”

“Without performing additional analysis of negative safety trends in [special operations] training when designating high-risk-training areas, SOCOM may miss an increase in issues related to safety within non-high-risk-designated programs,” GAO wrote. “By doing so, SOCOM could ensure that [special operations] service components have the required higher levels of oversight to mitigate risks during high-risk training.”

SOCOM officials also told the GAO that they have not had enough money to fully implement their 2022 training oversight program, which aims to conduct assessments of the implementation of safety standards and policies. They also lack the funds for subject matter experts to observe high-risk training to take a proactive approach “to identify training and safety issues” before they become rampant.

Last year, SOCOM spent some $767,000 on its training assessment program, but command officials told the GAO that sum was “insufficient to fully implement the number of scheduled observations that are part of the training assessment program.” During that last three fiscal years, SOCOM was only able to complete 18 of 30 scheduled safety observations, prioritizing the assessment efforts, the GAO found, because they are considered the “more formal effort” in the special operations community.

The GAO pointed out the assessment and observation efforts work. In one case, a SOCOM safety assessment last year found “shortcomings that resulted in undue stress and fatigue” for instructors and students at the Army’s Military Free-Fall Parachutist Course at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona.

That resulted in new safety protocols and “best practices,” including reducing the student-to-instructor ratio and reducing the number of jumps instructors conducted each day during the course, according to the GAO.

The watchdog encourages SOCOM to implement a formal timeline for each of the military services with special operations components to implement the assessment and observation systems into their training protocols.

“SOCOM has not established milestones to ensure the components complete these efforts,” GAO analysts wrote. “By not doing so, SOCOM does not have full assurance that each of the SOF service component commands possess an approach to safely conduct training and to mitigate risks.”