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DA Form 2397-12 is a DA series document issued for use across the Department of the Army. Official title: TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART XIII - FIRE. Purpose: technical report of u.s. army aircraft accident part xiii - fire. The current edition carries the date February 2009 and is listed with a publication status of not stated. The form runs to 1 page(s) and contains approximately 200 entry fields.
The office of primary responsibility is OCSA. Use is prescribed by PAM 385-40, which defines when the form is raised and where it goes afterward. The form is normally completed by the subject of the entries or by administrative personnel maintaining the record, then reviewed and signed as the governing authority directs.
Formats offered: PDF, XFDL. All are the same published layout in different containers, and the choice between them is a matter of how the entries will be made rather than what appears on the page. The pdf serves as the authoritative rendering. A fillable pdf exposes editable fields on screen; a printable pdf is the blank form as a flat page for handwriting.
Any modern browser or reader will display a pdf. Interactive fields behave more predictably in a standalone reader than in an in-browser viewer, which sometimes shows fields it cannot store. An xfdl copy is published as well. It is IBM Lotus Forms, the format carried by several Army systems, and it needs the Lotus Forms Viewer; pdf readers and word processors will not open it.
Every format is available at no charge and without sign-up. Files are distributed exactly as published, with no changes to the page.
What the form asks for
- AIR_MILES
- ContentArea1
- DAMAGE_A
- DAMAGE_B
- DAMAGE_C
- DAMAGE_D
- DATE
- DEF_A
- DEF_AA
- DEF_B
- DEF_BB
- DEF_C
- DEF_CC
- DEF_D
- DEF_DD
- DEF_E
- DEF_EE
- DEF_F
- DEF_FF
- DEF_G
- DEF_GG
- DEF_G_1
- DEF_G_10
- DEF_G_11
The blocks are worked through in the order they appear on the sheet. At the head sit the identifying entries: name, identification number, unit, date. Because the filed record is indexed on these, they precede everything substantive.
Interactive fields are filled by typing into them. Movement between fields is by tab, following the order established when the form was constructed, which usually tracks the page layout. Check boxes and radio groups are set by clicking, and exclusive groups permit one selection at a time. A one-line field has no wrap: text beyond its width prints truncated even when the screen shows it. Overlong content is placed in remarks or on a continuation, not forced into the field.
Signature comes at the end, applied in ink or by an accepted electronic method. Until it is applied the document is a draft. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — are taken in printed block order, each dated when signed rather than when the form was drafted. The commonest error is a mandatory field left blank; where nothing applies, the entry is marked accordingly instead of being skipped. Transposed identification digits, day and month reversed in dates, and carried-over data from a reused working copy account for most of the remainder.
Where personal information is gathered, the form carries a Privacy Act statement giving the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses, and the mandatory or voluntary character of the disclosure. It is read before entries are made rather than afterwards. A completed copy holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the corresponding safeguards.
Once completed, the form goes where the governing authority directs: to the designated office, along the unit administrative channel, or into the personal file. The preparer retains a copy. The length of retention and the manner of filing are set by the records schedule for the series, not by local arrangement.
Associated documents are located through the series and number scheme. Forms in the DA series with the same proponent or the same prescribing directive tend to be used as a set, and any form named on the face of another normally accompanies it. Continuations, cover sheets, and transmittals fall into this category and are gathered before the package is sent.
Editions are replaced when the proponent revises the content. The edition date printed on the form is the means of telling one version from another, and the date on a downloaded copy is checked against the edition in force before use. Records already executed on a prior edition are not reworked on that account.
What is offered here are copies of published Department of the Army documents, made available for download. The site is independent of the Department of the Army and publishes no forms of its own. The material is informational and not legal advice, and no statement is made about whether any office will accept a given document. Questions of entry, requirement, or eligibility go to the proponent or the servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 2397-12?
- TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART XIII - FIRE
- Which edition is current?
- February 2009
- Who is responsible for this form?
- OCSA
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL