One Marine dead, others injured in ACV rollover at Camp Pendleton

An Amphibious Combat Vehicle rolled over Tuesday night, Dec. 12, during training at Camp Pendleton; one Marine died and others inside the troop transport were injured, officials said.

The ACV, a vehicle that brings troops through water from ship to shore and can go across land, was training with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit near Camp Horno on the Pendleton base’s northern end.   According to I Marine Expeditionary Force officials, Marines were “making a ground movement” when the rollover occurred down steep terrain.

The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Fourteen other Marines were in the ACV and were taken to either local hospitals or Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton for evaluation and treatment.

The names of the injured Marines are also being withheld per Department of Defense policy.

The rollover is under investigation.

Since its fielding and testing at Camp Pendleton in 2019, the Marines have had a series of accidents while training with the new amphibious vehicle – those accidents were all while crews were training in the surf zone. The four accidents reported in the water were all without major injuries, according to officials at the time.

The difficulty getting the vehicle, which is heavily armored and rides on eight wheels, through the surf zone led to pauses in its use where it was kept out of water training. The 15th MEU, which is scheduled to deploy early next year, was to be the first to take a platoon of ACVs. A previous MEU deployment last year left without them after the surf zone issues.

After a review of how ACV crews and maintainers were trained to operate the new vehicle, the Marine Corps announced a major overhaul of the training regimen in April. Out of an abundance of caution, the Marine Corps has self-imposed a restriction on embarked troops while transiting the surf zone.

The ACV is replacing the Marine Corps’ aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle, which as been in service since the 1970s and was critical to amphibious warfare for the Marines. In July 2020, a training accident off San Clemente Island, in which eight Marines and a sailor died when the AAV they rode in sank, marked history as becoming the Corps’ deadliest amphibious accident.

The ACV is now considered the Marine Corps’ most important vehicle for amphibious warfare. A crew of three operates the vehicle and it can carry up to 13 infantry Marines across land and sea.

This is the first reported rollover on land with an ACV, but there has been an increase in recent years in rollovers reported in a variety of vehicles used by the Marines and Army. Between 2010 and 2019, the two branches reported 3,753 non-combat vehicle accidents, in which 124 people died. Vehicle rollovers were the cause of death in 63% of the accidents.

A 2021 U.S. Government Accountability Office report made recommendations to the service branches to create more clearly defined roles for supervisors, to establish procedures and mechanisms for risk management and to ensure driver-training programs have a well-defined process with specific performance criteria, structure and consistent standards.

Following the GAO report, Congress passed legislation to ensure more inspections on training ranges where vehicles operate and that efforts to reduce hazards were increased.