Every entry on DA Form 2397-8 exists because a record system needs it in writing. The form's official title is TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART IX - PERSONAL DATA, and it is raised whenever an office must technical report of u.s. army aircraft accident, part ix - personal data in a way that survives the departure of everyone involved. Memory does not transfer between assignments; a filed document does. The edition dated February 2009, status not stated, is what stands here, spread across 1 page(s) and about 200 fields — a count that reflects how much detail the receiving system requires, not how much the drafter wishes to give.
The form has an author and an occasion, held by different authorities. OCSA owns the content and reshapes it when what is being recorded changes. PAM 385-40 governs the event that calls for the form and the route the finished document takes afterwards. Keeping those two apart is what allows a procedure to be amended without the page being rebuilt each time.
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.
The rules of entry all trace back to the page being fixed in advance. Tabbing follows the order built into the form, which usually matches how the page reads and misses less than clicking. An exclusive group discards the earlier selection because contradictory entries would make the record unusable. One-line fields have no wrap because print positions are predetermined, so an overlong entry displays fully and prints truncated. Longer text goes to the remarks area or a continuation, both provided for exactly that. Where nothing applies, the nil mark is entered — a blank leaves the reader unable to tell a considered answer from a skipped one.
Signing is the act that makes the document evidence, and until it happens the entries are only a proposal. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — each stand for a separate judgement, dated when applied so the record shows who accepted what and in what order. The common faults all damage that record in the same way: a blank mandatory field breaks the chain of required answers, swapped digits in an identification number detach the document from its subject, an inverted day and month misplaces it in time, and stale data from a reused copy states things nobody meant to state.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
Why several files for one page? Because the form has to be completed in a headquarters and in places without a workstation, and PDF, XFDL covers both. The fillable pdf holds interactive fields that fix each entry in place and remove handwriting from the equation. The printable pdf is the same layout without those fields, meant for a printer and a pen. Neither is a lesser copy of the other; each answers a condition the other cannot.
Software determines whether an entry lasts. A browser viewer is designed for reading, and several will take typed input into fields without any means of writing it back — the text is simply absent when you reopen. A standalone reader handles the form structure properly. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, carried in Army systems for the routing and signature support it provides, which is why the Lotus Forms Viewer is its only reader.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- ACDT_HRS
- ACDT_HRS_1
- ACFT_MTDS
- ACFT_MTDS_1
- ACFT_MTDS_2
- ACFT_NO
- ANL_PHY_A
- ANL_PHY_B
- ANL_PHY_C
- APART
- ATM_ASC
- ATM_INV
- AUTH_A
- AUTH_B
- AUTH_C
- AUTO_A
- AUTO_B
- AUTO_C
- AUTO_DAT
- BACK_A
- BACK_A_1
- BACK_A_2
- BACK_A_3
- BACK_A_4
Where the signed form goes is settled by PAM 385-40 rather than by the office holding it — a named recipient, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's own file, depending on why it was raised. Retention likewise belongs to the records schedule for the series, which exists so documents are kept for as long as anyone might need them and no longer. Keep a copy before release; the original serves the file from then on, not you.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
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.
One boundary should be stated clearly. What is distributed here are copies of published Department of the Army forms; the site is independent, issues nothing of its own, and holds no position in the system it describes. Proponency, prescribing directives and retention schedules operate without reference to it. Consequently nothing here is legal advice and no assurance about acceptance is possible. Questions about a particular entry, a requirement or eligibility belong with OCSA or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 2397-8?
- TECHNICAL REPORT OF US ARMY AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT, PART IX - PERSONAL DATA
- Which edition is current?
- February 2009
- Who is responsible for this form?
- OCSA
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL