Three army reservists who died after suffering heat illness on an SAS selection march would have survived if they had been stopped at the last checkpoint they passed through, an inquest has heard.
Heat expert George Havenith said inadequate planning for the treatment of casualties also contributed to the deaths of Corporal James Dunsby, and Lance Corporals Craig Roberts and Edward Maher.
In detailed evidence to the inquest in Solihull, West Midlands, Havenith said stopping the exercise in July 2013 should have been considered as early as 12.14pm.
The inquest has been told the three men, who were wearing GPS trackers, collapsed between 2.16pm and 3.20pm on the Brecon Beacons, in south Wales.
After outlining the effects of heat on military personnel, Havenith said the 16-mile test should have been subjected to increasingly urgent and dynamic risk assessments after several men withdrew with heat-related conditions. Previous witnesses have described how two soldiers, known by the codenames 2J and 2P, were withdrawn at 12.14pm and 12.46pm.
Commenting on procedures in army guidelines, Havenith told the inquest the withdrawal of soldier 2J should have led commanders to take a temperature reading and consider stopping the exercise.
The professor of environmental physiology and ergonomics at Loughborough University, said: “With the second one, this again, with more urgency, should have led to a dynamic risk assessment. Stopping should have been urgently considered.”
Giving his view of the 4.26pm withdrawal of a third soldier, 4E, who was hallucinating due to the effects of heat, Havenith said: “The exercise should have been stopped before the third occurrence of heat illness. You should have a heightened level of alert if you see things that are unusual compared to a normal exercise.”
Havenith said the “expected outcome” for Roberts and Maher would have been survival, had they been halted and monitored at checkpoint five, their final one before the end of the march.
In a report presented to the inquest, Havenith said Roberts passed through checkpoint five at 1.14pm and then underwent 70 more minutes of activity, including a very steep ascent. “Before the steep climb it is highly unlikely that the heat illness he suffered from was in an advanced state.”
Maher had passed through the same checkpoint at 1.22pm when his condition was also unlikely to have been advanced, but had then marched for another 40 minutes.
Dunsby, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, was on a different route and passed through a checkpoint on the summit of Pen y Fan at 2.51pm. He then covered 1.9 miles (3km) down the mountain in 30 minutes, according to his tracker device.
Although he assumed that Dunsby’s heat illness was more advanced at the Pen y Fan checkpoint, Havenith said the part-time soldier would have survived had he been halted and the seriousness of his condition been recognised.
The inquest has heard the men died after suffering hyperthermia in temperatures of up to 27C (81F).
At least seven more reservists experienced heat injuries. It has been claimed that the march was not called off because a cancellation would have generated too much paperwork. Candidates have given vivid accounts of running out of water, collapsing in the heat and having to be helped by civilians.
Earlier on Wednesday it emerged that criminal prosecutions could follow the inquest.
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