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DA Form 285-W is a DA series document issued for use across the Department of the Army. Official title: TECHNICAL REPORT OF U.S. ARMY GROUND MISHAP SUMMARY OF WITNESS INTERVIEW. Purpose: technical report of u.s. army ground accident summary of witness interview. The current edition carries the date 07/01/2023 and is listed with a publication status of ACTIVE. The form runs to 2 page(s) and contains approximately 92 entry fields.
Proponency for the form rests with DAS. The governing authority is PAM 385-40, which establishes the circumstances of use and the required routing. Preparation falls to the individual named in the entries or to the unit administrator acting on that individual's behalf; review and signature follow the chain set out in the governing authority. A later edition of this form exists. The edition shown here is superseded and is retained for reference and for records already executed on it.
Distributed formats: PDF, XFDL. The layout is common to all of them; what varies is the method of entry. The pdf is the reference version. In the fillable pdf the entry areas are live objects that accept typing; in the printable version the same areas are inert and are filled by hand after printing.
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.
All formats are free to download and no registration is involved. The files are the published documents, distributed unmodified.
What the form asks for
- ADDRESS
- AGE
- ContentArea1
- Date_of_Accident
- Decline
- EXPERNC
- GRADE
- INTERVWR
- INTRVIEW
- Interviewer_Date
- LOCATE
- Line1
- Line2
- Line3
- NO_A
- Name_Witness
- OCCUP
- Page1
- Page2
- R62
- R63
- R64
- R65
- R66
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.
Fillable fields accept typing directly. Tab advances from one field to the next in the order the form was built, which is normally the reading order of the page. Check boxes and option buttons are clicked; where a set of options is exclusive, selecting one clears the rest. Fields sized for a single line will not wrap, and text exceeding the width is truncated in print even where it remains visible on screen. Long entries belong in the remarks area or on a continuation, not compressed into a narrow field.
The signature block is completed last and by hand or by an accepted electronic means. An unsigned form is a draft. Where a second signature is called for — reviewing official, approving authority, witness — each is applied in the order the blocks appear and dated as of application, not as of preparation. Blank mandatory fields are the most frequent defect; a nil entry is marked as such rather than left empty. Other recurring faults: transposed digits in identification numbers, dates in the wrong order of day and month, and stale copies retaining prior data because a working file was reused instead of a fresh blank form.
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.
Companion forms are traced by series and number. Within the DA series, documents sharing a proponent or a governing directive are frequently required together, and a form cited on the face of another is generally submitted alongside it. Continuation sheets, covers, and transmittal forms are part of that set and are assembled in advance of submission.
Revision by the proponent supersedes an edition. Version is read from the edition date printed on the form itself, and a stored copy is compared against the current edition before it is used again. Documents already executed under an earlier edition are not redone because of the change.
The files here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, provided for download. This site is not part of the Department of the Army and issues no forms of its own. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no representation is made as to acceptance of a document by any office. Where an entry, a requirement, or a question of eligibility is in doubt, the proponent or the servicing administrative office answers it.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 285-W?
- TECHNICAL REPORT OF U.S. ARMY GROUND MISHAP SUMMARY OF WITNESS INTERVIEW
- Which edition is current?
- 07/01/2023
- Who is responsible for this form?
- DAS
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- PRIVACY ACT STATEMENT