Tank hatch ‘failed to open after explosion’

AN injured tank driver who was burned in a vehicle blast had to wait to be freed by fire crews after an emergency release on his hatch seized up, an inquest has heard.

Trooper Michael Warren survived the explosion at Castlemartin Army firing ranges on June 14, 2017 which left two other soldiers fatally injured and another badly burned.

But an inquest into the deaths of Corporals Darren Neilson and Matthew Hatfield heard an emergency release mechanism on the hatch’s exterior did not work as expected.

Instead, Trooper Warren had to wait for civilian fire crews to turn up with specialist hydraulic equipment and lever the Challenger 2’s hatch open.

Up until then, other soldiers had been trying to crowbar the hatch off, senior coroner Louise Hunt was told on Thursday.

Corporals Hatfield and Neilson, both fathers and serving with the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), died of their injuries after an explosion in their tank at the firing ranges in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Cpl Neilson, 31, from Preston, Lancashire, was the tank commander and was thrown from the Challenger 2 during the blast, while Cpl Hatfield, 27, from Amesbury, Wiltshire, was loading ammunition.

After the explosion, a fire extinguishing device which sucks oxygen out of a tank had been thrown into the turret through the uppermost hatches, which were open.

Reacting to the blast, Ross Broad – then still a trooper with the RTR – told the inquest he went around to the driver’s hatch lower down, but found it closed up.

He said: “I went round to the front [of the tank] and by the time I was there, they had already been trying to get the hatch open.

“Whatever they’d done, worked.

“They were trying to get the crowbars into the gap to try and lever the hatch open and lift it.

“I don’t remember how much time passed, but fire crews showed up with hydraulic equipment and we went across and carried it over with them.”

He added: “Two guys were able to hold the hatch up, and get the hydraulics in to lever the hatch up.”

Ms Hunt then asked about how the hatch could be opened from the outside.

The former soldier replied: “At the corners of the hatch, there’s a mechanism like a pin that you’re told if you need it open for an emergency, you need to hit that with a special hammer.

“Once you break that, you should be able to get it open.”

But he added: “You never practise that sort of thing, because you’d break it.”

Asked if it did break, he was unable to say.

Ms Hunt asked: “Can you explain why it didn’t open?”

Mr Broad said: “I just know they’d been hitting it and it still wouldn’t lift.”

Asked to estimate how long it had taken from the start of efforts to open the hatch to the fire brigade arriving, he was unable to say.

At the start of the inquest, the coroner heard evidence of a timeline of events, stating the Army rang 999 at 3.33pm and the first fire engine arrived about 14 minutes later.

The tank involved, known by callsign DS-39-AA, was regarded as a “good wagon” among soldiers in Badger Squadron, with a particularly accurate main gun. it hadn’t