The Indian Air Force (IAF) has terminated services of three officers held guilty for accidental firing of Brahmos missile from an air base which landed more than 100 km inside Pakistan's territory on March 9.
A Court of Inquiry (Col), set up to establish the facts of the case, including fixing responsibility for the incident, found that deviation from the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) by three officers led to the accidental firing of the missile. The Brahmos missile, which has a range of 400 km, landed at Mian Channu in Pakistan. Though it damaged physical installations, there was no loss of lives.
"These three officers have primarily been held responsible for the incident. Their services have been terminated by the Central Government with immediate effect. Termination orders have been served upon the officers on August 23," said the Air Force.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh had constituted a high level inquiry on March 15 to probe the unfortunate incident. Both, Air Force and Army has Brahmos missiles. While Army has surface-to-surface Brahmos, IAF has the former as well air-to-surface missile fired from Su 30 MKI.