This story from the Daily Telegraph site is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.
This had to be a major screw up somewhere on the gun position and should never have occurred had the drills and independent checks been carried out properly. Sorry to sound preachy, but when I was in Germany we had very stringent safety restrictions placed on us because of the large number of these type of incidents by the Brits. The original reason we got was wide rounds by the Commonwealth artillery in BAOR, but when pressed on the matter, admitted none of the incidents had been done by Canadian gunners.
Army suspends live fire on Salisbury Plain after stray shell fired over Wiltshire villages
A Ministry of Defence investigation is under way into how the artillery round was fired five miles off course by soldiers on a military exercise
By Bill Gardner10:38AM GMT 11 Mar 2014
The Army has suspended all live firing on Salisbury Plain after a stray shell was fired over two Wiltshire villages and exploded in a cornfield just yards away from a busy railway line.
A Ministry of Defence investigation is under way into how the artillery round was fired five miles off course by soldiers on a military exercise.
The round landed at Patney, near Devizes, only 3330 yards from the Paddington-Penzance railway, leaving a crater 6ft in diameter and 2ft deep.
Military chiefs are still investigating where the stray shell came from but a source said it was probably fired by a self-propelled artillery piece or a light gun.
Andrew Snook, a farmer, described how he heard a tremendous bang far louder than the usual sound of distant firing practice on Salisbury Plain.
"There was a lot of heavy firing going on and this one blast did really make me wince. I wouldn't have heard it if I'd been in a tractor.
"I thought, that's close and people in the village said they thought it landed right next to the farm."
The incident happened last Wednesday, but Mr Snook and his son did not find the spot until Friday and then alerted the MoD.
Mr Snook, 55, said he was putting up a building on his farm at about 10am on Wednesday when he heard the explosion.
"A chap in the village said he'd heard the shell whistling over.
"The MoD came and took away all the bits at the weekend," he said.
"There was nothing in that field, it's been too wet, but an apology from the MoD might be nice.
"Earth had been thrown 40 feet. It could have been serious if it had landed in the village, and it is only 300 metres from the railway line.”
The shell flew five miles off course and after whizzing low over two villages, it blew a large hole in the cornfield just 980 feet from the main Paddington to Penzance railway line, used by inter-city expresses often carrying hundreds of passengers.
It left a 6ft-wide crater in the field and scattered earth and rock up to 40ft.
Mr Snook, who farms on the edge of Salisbury Plain at Patney, near Devizes, said it was lucky that nobody was killed.
He says the "friendly fire" rogue shell must have travelled at least five miles over the A342 and the village of Chirton, which has a population of 250, before reaching his farm.
"We live about three miles from the edge of the firing range and around five miles from where they are usually training, so it's come quite a way.
"It must have come over a couple of villages to get here. If it had landed in a village it would have been a very different story.
"We found it on the Friday and we called the MoD. They came out on Saturday and started investigating - what type of shell it was and where it has come from.
"They tried to find out exactly what it was but I don't think they really know - if they did they didn't tell me."
Both 4 and 19 Regiments Royal Artillery, 7 Parachute Regiment Royal House Artillery, Kings Royal Hussars Challenger 2 squadron and a CVRT squadron were using the Plain on March 5.
They were on a week-long training session taking part in a number of live firing exercises across the plain.
An Army source said: “It was an artillery shell but we don’t know what size. There were a number of units firing on that day.
“There was some 105mm stuff being fired and some heavier 155 too. They’re normally fired from the southern end of the Salisbury Plains.
“If it’s a 105mm those come from light guns that tend to be towed by Land Rovers.
“But if it was 155mm, that would be fired from an armoured self-propelled artillery piece.
“I have to say this happens extremely rarely. It could be that something’s gone horribly wrong with the grid coordinates that they use to plot the trajectory. It can be quite a complex calculation.
“Or it could be that something’s gone wrong with the charge and the shell has simply been fired too far.
“We take live firing in the UK very seriously - so this is certainly not good.”
Despite the round exploding close to the Paddington to Penzance railway line, a spokeswoman for Network Rail said they had not been alerted "before or after" the incident and had not shut the line.
"Normally we're alerted so we can brief drivers but we haven't been told," she said.
Salisbury Plain is the UK's largest training area, with live firing taking place an average of 340 days a year. It covers 300 square miles and is used extensively by the Army for ground, air and tank training.
A spokesman for the MoD said: "We can confirm that during live firing on Salisbury Plain Training Area last week an artillery shell landed outside the range boundary.
"No one was injured and no property was damaged but all live firing has been suspended while this is investigated."
