Army officer killed by reversing Warrior during exercise amid safety failures

Second Lieutenant Max George, a 26-year-old British Army officer, was killed when a Warrior armoured vehicle reversed over him during a training exercise on Salisbury Plain in June 2022. A coroner ruled that flawed and unsafe Army procedures contributed to his death, and said he would issue a report aimed at preventing similar deaths.

George had left the stationary vehicle to retrieve his weapon and was at its rear, in the driver’s blind spot, holding open its 143kg back door. The tank had nine known faults, including a non-functioning alarm that should have warned the driver before reversing with the door open; the vehicle had been cleared for use despite those faults. The coroner also cited the use of a variant not intended for troop debussing, inadequate commander training and missing control measures. A later investigation found 24 severe faults, though the article says they were not thought to have caused George’s death.