Military vehicle rollover that killed veteran not first training incident

A recent military vehicle rollover incident in the Northern Territory that resulted in the death of an Australian soldier was not the first training incident involving the six-wheel Supacat transporter. According to Defence, a previous incident had occurred in 2020 where one of the vehicles tipped over during a driver training course, but it was not considered a rollover as it did not involve significant rotational movement.

Corporal Brendan Hannam died, and five soldiers were injured when their open-top Supacat High Mobility Transporter rolled at the Mount Bundey training area about 115 kilometres south-east of Darwin on October 5. Defence has confirmed Corporal Hannam was not the driver of the vehicle.

Previous incidents

Following the incident, Chief of Army Susan Coyle said Supacat operations had been paused, and it would be "premature" to make any other comment about how the incident occurred. She said there had "not been" any other incidents involving those kind of vehicles.

However, Defence later confirmed that one of the Supacat vehicles had tipped in a previous training exercise, after photographic evidence of an incident showing a vehicle tipped over on its side was obtained. A spokesperson said the image was likely of a 2020 accident on a driver training course which did not cause any injuries or damage to the vehicle.

The spokesperson said the vehicle in the image was not considered to have "rolled over" but to have "layed over". The incident was classed as a "lay over" because the vehicle had not undertaken "significant rotational movement onto its roof after one or more complete rotations", according to the spokesperson.

UK incidents

Defence has also declined to comment on whether any safety upgrades or changes to training were made in relation to Australia's Supacat fleet following the death of a UK soldier in 2019 in a four-wheeler British variant of the Supacat high mobility vehicle called a Jackal.

The Jackal, developed from the same platform that was used as the base for Australia's six-wheel Supacat Extenda models, is the company's flagship model. It boasts a similar "open architecture" design with a series of roll bars to protect crew and has been in service with the UK forces from 2007.

In 2019 one of the Jackals, a model 2, rolled during a training exercise in the UK, killing the driver, Staff Sergeant John McKelvie, and throwing the instructor from the vehicle at a training ground. An official UK military inquiry was held into the incident in 2021 and an inquest in 2024.

A UK inquiry made more than 50 recommendations to improve safety in Supacat's Jackal model. The inquest heard there had been more than 30 rollover incidents involving the UK Jackals that had led to some soldiers suffering head and neck injuries.

Recommendations and changes

The military inquiry findings, released in 2021, raised concerns about the Jackal's inadequate rollover protection and officially recommended roll safety upgrades to all high mobility Supacats and changes to training operations. Concerns were raised about the individual roll bars not being designed to support the full weight of the vehicle and occupants being at risk from objects intruding into the open cabin area during a roll.

"Additionally the panel found that vehicle crews had no means by which to measure the tilt of the vehicle while driving or surveying the ground on foot," the inquiry report stated. This was considered a "contributory factor", it stated.

The inquiry made more than 50 recommendations to improve safety with many related to rollover protection including that crews should be informed of vehicle tilt limitations and there be a mechanism to determine vehicle angle to stay within safe operational limits.

Recent death

Corporal Hannam's funeral was held on October 19. The highly experienced soldier who had done two tours of Afghanistan left a wife and two children. The five soldiers who were injured in the crash have since been discharged from hospital, Defence says.

Corporal Hannam is the fourth soldier to die in the past five years in rollover incidents involving military vehicles. In October 2025, Australian soldier Lance Corporal Tulsa Rumney was killed when an armoured personal carrier rolled at a training area west of Townsville.

In August 2021, Craftsman Brendon Payne and Warrant Officer Ryan Leslie died when the heavy recovery vehicle they were driving rolled near the Townsville Field Training area in North Queensland.