By IRNA
London : A British soldier bled to death in Afghanistan because of faulty equipment, compounded by incompetence, according to a military inquiry into the incident.
Corporal Mark Wright, who died from his injuries in a minefield after rescuing an injured colleague in September 2006, could have lived if the helicopter summoned to help had been equipped with a winch, the inquiry found.
Wright, a 27-year-old paratrooper posthumously awarded the George Cross, was among seven soldiers, who had to wait five hours for a US Knighthawk helicopter after being trapped in a minefield in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.
According to the Guardian newspaper Monday, the so-far unpublished report of the military inquiry says there were no British helicopters equipped to get soldiers out of the minefield.
Had there been, it is understood Wright’s wounding may not have proved fatal”. He died before the aircraft reached a military hospital in Camp Bastion.
It concludes the paratrooper died because of the non-availability of an aircraft equipped with a suitable winch and that British soldiers did not have a map of the mined area even though one was available.
There were also radio problems that led to a communications breakdown and that soldiers had to provide their own mine extraction kits.
On Sunday, Defence Secretary Des Browne again confirmed that British troops, which currently number 7,800, could be engaged in Afghanistan for decades, but said that there is “only so much our forces can achieve.”
“The job can only be completed by the international community working with the Afghan government and its army. It is a commitment which could last decades, although it will reduce over time,” Browne said in an interview with the People newspaper.