Systematisk dokumentation av incidenter rörande OXA, Skjutfältsavveckling 2016

Authors:

  • Ida Johansson

Publish date: 2017-03-24

Report number: FOI-R--4412--SE

Pages: 28

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • UXO
  • unexploded ordnance
  • ammunition
  • munition
  • shooting range
  • accidents

Abstract

The present report represents a support for the Swedish Fortifications Agency in issues that may arise when disposing of land previously used as military firing ranges and training areas. As unexploded ammunition (UXO) may occur in such areas, the transfer of these areas to civilian society may cause a risk for accidents with UXO. UXO is launched ammunition that has not initiated and a bi-product from live fire exercises. In order to gather information about incidents that have involved UXO in Sweden, the Swedish Fortifications Agency has ordered a media monitoring service to map media's reporting on accidents related to UXO during the years 1900-2016. FOI has analyzed the data from this survey and also called for tips from the public through advertisements in military-related magazines and associations. Incidents that have been reported previous year in a report by Gustafsson et al2 have also been added. FOI has hereby got information on 37 incidents that involve UXO and that are related to Swedish military firing ranges and training areas, where most occurred during the years 1940-1970. The Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defence Medicine, which registers work injury reports for employees of the Swedish Armed Forces, has also been contacted, as well as the Swedish National Bomb Disposal Units (the Stockholm division), which keeps statistics on bomb related incidents, including UXO. These began to keep statistics about 1995 and 2008 respectively and no incidents have come to their knowledge since then. For the incidents that have been found, different aspects have been analyzed and reported into an Excel table, which is delivered together with the report. For the incidents that have been found, the interaction with the UXO has in most cases been on purpose, it is, on one's own initiative. Civilians account for a slightly higher percentage of the accidents than military personnel. Among civilians, children are overrepresented. Adults often have realized the nature of the object; that it is ammunition, but still not been fully aware of, or in spite of this exposed themselves to, the risks (both civilians and military personnel). It may be noted that the accident rate has declined in spite of the first major disposal of firing ranges in 1994. In the newspaper articles that were sources of the majority of the reported incidents, it is often not stated which type of UXO that has been involved. Other relevant factors are also missing. It may therefore be valuable to further explore the reported cases.