APPENDIX D

Army watercraft operate continuously in mission environments characterized by elevated risk and ever-changing variables. The goal of the Transportation Branch Marine Safety Program is to address safety issues before they cause accidental loss and to effect continuous improvement of the watercraft fleet and associated training, doctrine, leader development, and organizational structure. Major watercraft safety issues to be addressed for the next five years include:

Materiel Development. Ensure that new and modified craft are capable of performing stated missions safely; that design considerations support compliance with applicable safety, environmental, and human factor engineering standards. Maintain a system of branch safety advisories to ensure field units are kept abreast of safety issues.

Doctrine. Produce a single-source safety manual for field use. Continue review of new and updated doctrine to ensure adequate integration of safety information. Accumulate lessons learned from field operations and initiate doctrinal changes that improve safe operation of Army watercraft.

Training. Continue resident and off-site confined space entry training, review watercraft lesson plans for adequate integration of safety information, and conduct on-site evaluations during instruction of elevated risk tasks. Determine where conduct of risk assessments during training are valuable to reinforce the use of risk management in the field. Review MOS task selection to ensure training meets the needs of the field for safe operations.

Leader Development. Continue teaching risk management to leaders at all levels.

Organizational Structure. Conduct indepth review of basic issue items listings and TOE’s to ensure that state-of-the-art safety equipment, in adequate supply, is available when needed. Assess crew mix problems and recommend solutions.

Army Prepositioned Stocks (APS-3). Ensure APS vessels are maintained to the same standards as active MTOE vessels; that safety equipment is available and in a ready to use condition.

Reserve Component. Conduct on-site safety evaluation and training of Army Reserve watercraft units tri-annually or as requested by the USARC.