The reason DA Form 2397-10 looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART XI - PERSONAL PROTECTIVE/ESCAPE/SURVIVAL/RESCUE DATA, it serves to technical report of u.s. army aircraft accident, part xi - personnal protective/escape/survival/rescue data, and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition February 2009, status not stated, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to 200 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. OCSA is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. PAM 385-40 is the prescribing authority: it decides when the form is raised at all and where the completed document travels. Content and occasion are separated deliberately, so that a change in procedure does not require redesigning the page.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
Personal information may not be gathered silently, and the Privacy Act statement is how that obligation is met on paper: it names the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses and whether disclosure is mandatory. Because it exists to inform a decision, it belongs before the fields it covers rather than after them. A filled copy then holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the corresponding safeguards.
Download the form
The published formats — PDF, XFDL — reflect the range of places a form gets filled in. Where there is a computer, the fillable pdf supplies live fields that keep entries positioned and readable. Where there is not, the printable pdf gives the identical page as flat artwork for pen entry. The distinction is one of setting rather than of authority; the page is the same document in both.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter. The xfdl file belongs to a different lineage entirely: IBM Lotus Forms, adopted across Army systems for the routing and signature handling built into it. That is why only the Lotus Forms Viewer reads it.
No charge and no account apply: these are published documents, and access to them is not something a distributor is entitled to price.
What the form asks for
- ContentArea1
- DATE
- DAY
- DAY_1
- DAY_2
- DAY_3
- DUTY
- EVAC_A
- EVAC_B
- EVAC_BB
- EVAC_BB_1
- EVAC_BB_2
- EVAC_BB_3
- EVAC_C
- EVAC_CC
- EVAC_D
- EVAC_E
- EVAC_F
- EVAC_G
- EVAC_GG
- EVAC_GG_1
- EVAC_GG_2
- EVAC_GG_3
- FIELD1
The routing in PAM 385-40 decides where the document goes — a named office, the administrative channel, or the individual's file — and the records schedule for the series decides how long it stays. Neither is a local judgement, because a record system loses its meaning if each office keeps things for its own preferred interval. Copy the form before submitting it.
Series and number are how the DA series signals which documents belong together, and the grouping follows real process boundaries: a shared proponent or directive usually means a shared purpose. A form cited on the face of another is part of that same transaction, and continuation sheets, covers and transmittals complete it.
Editions change because the process changes, and the printed edition date is the only marker of which version a page belongs to. A copy saved locally cannot know it has been superseded, so the date on it is compared against the edition in force before reuse. Records already executed under an earlier edition are left alone — a document is read under the terms it was made, and reopening completed files to match a later form would falsify the account.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. OCSA and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 2397-10?
- TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART XI - PERSONAL PROTECTIVE/ESCAPE/SURVIVAL/RESCUE DATA
- Which edition is current?
- February 2009
- Who is responsible for this form?
- OCSA
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL