IDF soldier killed in Golan Heights training accident
Tank commander Sgt. Ido Ben-Ari, aged 20 from Ramat HaSharon, was trapped under a tank when it flipped over, killing him and lightly injuring his three crew members; training exercise in the Armored Corps halted until investigators could rule out technical malfunction.
The soldier, Sgt. Ido Ben-Ari, aged 20 from Ramat HaSharon, was a tank commander in the 9th Battalion of the Armored Corps' 401st Brigade. His father was also a commander in the Armored Corps.
The three other soldiers in the tank were lightly injured and flown to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and have since been discharged after receiving treatment at the ER.
Ben-Ari, who was posthumously promoted to the rank of first sergeant, will be laid to rest on 10am Friday at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery.
The accident happened at around 1am on Mount Shifon in the northern Golan Heights during a wide-scale training exercise that included Ben-Ari's tank brigade as well as the Givati Brigade and its engineering forces.
Ben-Ari was trapped under a Mark IV tank that flipped over and was seriously injured. He was extracted but later succumbed to his injuries.
It is still unclear what caused the tank to flip over, and the IDF's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is investigating the accident. In addition, GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir appointed a team of experts to investigate the accident led by the head of the 340th Reserves Division, Col. Eran Shani.
The training exercise was halted following the accident and other Armored Corps exercises have been put on hold until investigators could rule out a technical malfunction in the tank—the most advanced the IDF has. The IDF is also investigating whether the crew drilled the possibility of a flip-over before going on the drive.
Armored Corps soldiers were debriefed following the accident and reminded that they must wear their helmet while the tank is moving and ensure the system that alerts that a tank is about to tip over is working. Furthermore, commanders in the Armored Corps discussed the dangers of driving the tank at night time and how to deal with it.
The reason only Ben-Ari was killed in the accident is because the commander of a Mark IV tank rides with his body half outside of the tank while the other three crew members remain inside the tank. In older versions of the tank, Mark II and Mark III, the loader used to stand next to the commander.
