The British Army’s faulty Ajax vehicles come back to rattle Parliament

MILAN — A British government minister has vowed to put an end to the “saga” of dangerous vibrations in the U.K.’s new Ajax armored vehicles, as opposition politicians call for the program to be fixed or scrapped.

Three enquiries are now underway into the noisy vibrations in the General Dynamics vehicles during an exercise held just after they were given initial operating capability status.

The vehicles were promptly parked as 30 soldiers riding in them took ill, with some reportedly vomiting.

The armored vehicles had been declared fully functioning after nine years of delays to the £6.3 billion ($8.4 billion) program and repeated problems with vibrations.

“Prior to Ajax’s initial operating capability being announced, I asked for and was given assurances in writing by senior Ministry of Defence personnel that the system was safe,” Luke Pollard, the U.K. Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry told the U.K. parliament on Monday.

He added he was now having daily meetings with General Dynamics which has built the vehicles in the U.K.

“Let me be clear, we will take whatever decisions are required to end this saga one way or another,” he said.

So far around 160 vehicles have been built and the U.K. is expected to order 589 of the vehicles.

After Pollard spoke, a former minister for defense procurement, James Cartlidge also addressed the parliamentary session.

“These renewed incidents with noise and vibration sound strikingly similar to the problems that I was assured, when I was minister for defense procurement, had been resolved,” he said.

“We have both been misled about the viability of the Ajax program,” he added.

“Surely the only possible conclusion is that the Ajax vehicle is fundamentally flawed,” he said, demanding General Dynamics “must be held to account.”

Cartlidge stated, “I imagine the minister is as furious as I am at being repeatedly given what have turned out to be false assurances by those responsible for the program. He is now left with a binary choice, fix it or fail it.”

Pollard responded, “I too was disgusted when I heard the news of the injuries to our service personnel, especially after the point the vehicles were assured to be safe.”

He held out the possibility that a fix was possible.

“Getting to the bottom to what has happened is really important because the Ajax vehicle has completed 42,000 km of testing without those injuries taking place,” he said, adding, “not all the vehicles on that exercise caused injuries.”