KARACHI: Investigations are ongoing to ascertain whether Indians ended up destroying their own Mi17 helicopter in Occupied Kashmir as the country engaged in a conflict with Pakistan last month.
According to The Economic Times,an Indian publication, the investigations are looking into possibility that a missile fired shortly before the chopper crash might have hit the Mi17 V5 helicopter.
The crash killed seven people including six Indian Air Force officials in Budgam area near Srinagar on February, the day Pakistan shot down two Indian aircraft over Kashmir.
The newspaper said the investigators are probing the sequence of events which took place before the chopper crash.
"The final moments preceding the crash, including if the IFF (Identity, Friend or Foe) systems were switched on or not, are being carefully looked at to determine what went wrong," a report published in Economic Times said.
Quoting highly placed sources, the report said the Indian Air Force is determined to initiate court martial proceedings against personnel if they are found responsible for the incident during the ongoing inquiry.
"The missile – believed to be of Israeli origin – was activated after an air defence alert was sounded over Jammu and Kashmir, besides other parts of the border, after a over 25 Pakistani air force jets were detected along the border on the morning of February 27," the report said citing unnamed sources.
"The alert indicated that Pakistani jets may be trying to breach the border for a strike on Indian military targets and there were concerns that armed UAVs available with that country may also have been deployed. A slow moving target like the Mi 17 V 5 helicopter could potentially be mistaken for a low flying armed UAV homing into an air base," the report said.
According to newspaper the helicopter crashed in the 10-minute span when Indian warplanes were engaged in an aerial battle with the Pakistan Air Force fighters, along the Line of Control in the Nowshera sector, and air defence systems were on operational alert.
Quoting eyewitnesses, the report said Eyewitness reported that a loud explosion was heard in the air before the chopper crashed in a trail of smoke, indicating a possible catastrophic external event contributed to the incident.