Four other IAF personnel on board the chopper — flight engineer Vishal Kumar Pandey, sergeant Vikrant Sehrawat, corporals Deepak Pandey and Pankaj Kumar -- have been awarded ‘Mention-in-Despatches’ (MID) posthumously by President Ram Nath Kovind. The incident of friendly fire took place while the Indian and Pakistani air forces were engaged in a dogfight on 27 February last year. It occurred at a time when the Pakistani airforce retaliated to the Indian Air Force bombing a terrorist training camp in Balakot inside Pakistan a day earlier. The Indian Air Force chopper that was shot down was aRussian-made MI-17 which had six personnel on board besides one civilian. At a press conference in October, Indian Air Force chief RKS Bhadauria had admitted that the MI-17 was brought down by friendly fire and that it was a “big mistake."

Source: Mint January 26, 2020 03:45 UTC