IAF indicts official for downing Mi-17 chopper, recommends dismissal; what happens next

An IAF General Court Martial has recommended sacking of the Group Captain who was the COO of the Srinagar Air Force Station for shooting down an Mi-17 V5 helicopter in Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Here is what you need to know.

New Delhi: An Indian Air Force instituted General Court Martial (GCM) had indicted a Group Caption and recommended him to be sacked from the force for shooting down downing an Mi-17 V5 helicopter in Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir with a surface-to-air missile (SAM) on Feb. 27, 2019. Here is what you need to know and what happens next in 10 points.

1. A litigation pending in the Punjab and Haryana High Court directed the GCM to carry on with its probe and conclude its findings against the Group Captain in question. The Court had ordered that the recommendation of the GCM will have to be put on hold until it disposes off the litigation that arose out of the incident.
2. The matter which is now sub-judice will be placed before the IAF chief after the litigation is complete which will take its own course and time based on the will of the Force to take it to a logical conclusion which appears to be a long drawn process.
3. According to the IAF norms, the Chief of Air Staff has to approve the recommendation of the GCM for sacking of the officer involved and the GCM's order will be placed before the IAF chief based on the outcome of the court decision.
4. Recommending the dismissal of the Group Captain, the GCM said it found violations of standard operating procedures and guilty for not following the laid down norms, including orders issued by the Air Headquarters on 'Identification of Friend or Foe' (IFF).
5. The GCM found that the IFF system on-board the ill-fated chopper was switched off. It also established "vital gaps" in communication and coordination between the ground staff and the crew of the chopper. The IFF helps air defence radars identify whether an aircraft or helicopter is friendly or hostile.
6. The IAF's own SAM targeted the attack helicopter when the chopper was on its way back to Srinagar amid a dogfight between the Indian and Pakistani air forces, a Court of Inquiry into the incident revealed.
7. The GCM has recommended the dismissal of the Group Captain Suman Roy Chowdhury who served as the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the Srinagar Air Force Station when the Mi-17 chopper was shot down by an Israeli-origin ground-based Spyder SAM.
8. The GCM was instituted by the IAF after the findings the Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the crash established that the Mi-17 V-5 helicopter was shot down by a ground-based missile.
9. The crash killed six IAF personnel were on board the chopper and a civilian on the ground. The unfortunate dogfight took place a day after India claimed to have carried out an air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camp in Balakot in Pakistan.
10. The Mi-17 chopper crashed in Budgam around 10 am on Feb. 27, 2019, when Indian and Pakistani fighter planes were engaged in fierce aerial combat in Nowshera.