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DA Form 285 is a Department of the Army form in the DA series. Title of record: TECHNICAL REPORT OF U.S. ARMY GROUND ACCIDENT. Function: technical report of u.s. army ground accident. The edition presently published bears the date January 2009, with a status of not stated. Physical extent is 5 page(s) and about 200 fillable fields.
Proponency for the form rests with OCSA. The governing authority is AR 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.
Available formats: PDF, XFDL. Each is a rendering of the same official layout; the content is identical across them and only the means of completion differs. The pdf is the reference copy. Fillable pdf carries interactive form fields; a printable pdf is the same page image without them, intended for pen entry 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.
Download of every format is free and requires no account. Files are served as published, without alteration to the page image.
What the form asks for
- A77A
- A78A
- ACCIDENT
- ACCTYPE_A
- ACCTYPE_B
- ACCTYPE_C
- ACCTYPE_D
- ACCTYPE_E
- ACCTYPE_F
- ACCTYPE_G
- ACCTYPE_H
- ACCTYPE_I
- ACCTYPE_J
- ACCTYPE_K
- ACCTYPE_L
- ACCTYPE_M
- ACCTYPE_N
- ACCTYPE_O
- ACCTYPE_P
- ACCTYPE_Q
- ACCTYPE_R
- ACCTYPE_S
- ACTION_A
- ACTION_AA
Entry proceeds block by block in the order printed on the page. Identifying particulars occupy the head of the form: name, identification number, unit or organisation, and date of preparation. These fields govern how the record is later retrieved from the file, so they are completed before any substantive block.
Typed entry is made straight into the interactive fields. The tab key moves through them in the order set at build time, generally matching the reading order of the page. Boxes and buttons respond to a click; in an exclusive group, one selection cancels the others. Single-line fields do not wrap, and anything longer than the field width prints cut off although it may still display in full on screen. Extended text goes to remarks or a continuation sheet rather than into a narrow box.
The signature block is the final entry, made by hand or by an authorised electronic method, and without it the document remains a draft. Countersignatures — review, approval, witness — are added in the sequence printed, dated at the moment of signing and not at preparation. Empty mandatory fields lead the list of defects; an inapplicable field is annotated as such, not passed over. Behind it come digit transposition in identification numbers, day-month inversion in dates, and residual entries surviving from a reused copy in place of a blank form.
Forms that collect personal information bear a Privacy Act statement covering authority, purpose, routine uses, and whether the disclosure is required or optional. Reading it precedes completion. Once filled, the document contains personal data and is subject to the handling and storage rules that attach to such records.
The completed form is routed as the governing authority prescribes: to the office named in the directive, through the unit administrative channel, or into the individual's file, depending on the case. A copy is retained by the preparer. Filing and retention follow the records schedule applicable to the series rather than local practice.
Related forms are found by series and number. Documents in the DA series sharing a proponent or a prescribing directive commonly travel together, and a form referenced within the body of another is usually filed with it. Continuation sheets, cover sheets, and transmittal documents belong to this group and are collected before submission rather than after.
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.
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?
- TECHNICAL REPORT OF U.S. ARMY GROUND ACCIDENT
- Which edition is current?
- January 2009
- Who is responsible for this form?
- OCSA
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL