A Marine joint light tactical vehicle recently caught fire at a California base after a high-explosive artillery round landed in the vicinity, video posted to social media indicates.
Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Noah Richardson told Marine Corps Times on Tuesday via email, “1st Marine Division is aware of a training incident that occurred Aug. 30, 2023 in Twentynine Palms, CA, involving two of our units that were participating in a service level training exercise.”
“No Marines were killed or seriously injured,” Richardson said.
“No additional information will be made available at this time until the circumstances surrounding the incident are known and an investigation is complete.”
Video of the burning vehicle was posted to the Instagram account notinregz over the weekend with the label, “Mortar Hit JLTV.” The account later updated in the caption that it was an artillery round.
It was “a 155mm high explosive artillery shell,” which didn’t hit the vehicle but rather landed in the vicinity, The Messenger reported Wednesday.
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Four Marines and one Navy corpsman from 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, were in the vehicle and had to evacuate it as it caught fire, the Messenger reported. The artillery round, fired by another unit ― 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines ― had landed two miles short of its target, according to the Messenger.
Officials told the Messenger that the round was the 103-pound M795 High Explosive Artillery Projectile, which contains almost 24 pounds of TNT.
Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.
