Sacked wing commander Abhinav Sharma describes Brahmos firing in Pakistan as ‘unfaithful accident’

In a counter to the Indian Air Force’s response, Sharma said he was at no point “involved or informed about the changed mission, which was communicated directly by the CO (commanding officer) to the OP officer.”

As ET first reported in March this year, IAF had told the Delhi High Court that the missile’s combat terminals “remained connected to the junction box”, leading to the missile’s accidental firing. In a detailed rejoinder seen by ET, which was recently filed in HC, Sharma has submitted that there are “glaring gaps and ambiguities in the SOP as to who among the combat crew and the OP officers are responsible for carrying out the “To disconnect combat plugs after health check”. “.

The rejoinder states: “The decision to connect/disconnect combat connectors rests solely with the operating room officer. No special duty is assigned to the EO (Engineering Officer) to connect/disconnect the combat ports.” Sharma has claimed that on the day of the accident, “none of the combat crews were in the correct position within the MAL (due to the presence of an additional member, Air Commander JT Kurien, who chose to sit in the combat crew/operations officer seat”) Also, at no point was the petitioner (Sharma) as a technical officer involved or informed about the changed mission, which was done by the CO directly was communicated to the operating room officer.”

The rejoinder states that the squadron leader “was briefed to the combat team by the commanding officer during the pre-combat briefing at which the mission with a missile was available. However, before the mission was assigned to MAL (Mobile Autonomous Launcher), it was a modified mission with three missiles was demonstrated to Air Commander Kurien in the presence of the squadron leader.

Sharma has informed that MAL Commander-in-Chief Pranjal Singh (also sacked), despite being seven years younger than him, was designated for the exercise. “More than the combat team, the combat roles were the determining factors and should have been the lynchpin in determining guilt,” Sharma’s rejoinder said. Sharma has stated that “Engineering officers for such sophisticated new weapon systems are selected either from the…or from other countries.” Beginning their specialized training in the IAF or are selected on the basis of their previous experience and performance in similar fleets.” However, the rejoinder states : “No such criteria were available for the selection of operational commanders who would be appointed directly to key decision-making areas,” such as MAL Commander/Flight Commander (CO) with limited operator training.

The IAF had, in its previous reply, said Kurien was “not responsible for the operations carried out by the unit”, as the petitioner alleged. The allegations made by the petitioner were described by the IAF as “suppositions, conjectures, blunt, baseless and without any substantive evidence”.

Sharma said that “firing the missile is not just a matter of pressing a button, but it is a sequence of several steps on the launch screen that is reserved only for the operations officer.”

He said the response submitted by the IAF suffered from the “fault of being misleading, concealing material facts and failing to address many of the criticisms”.

“Summons of the Vice Marshal”
Sharma has asked HC to produce the officer’s (Air Vice Marshal) file as operations officer for surface-to-air/surface-to-surface missile operations. He alleged that “instead of ensuring an independent and impartial investigation,” the IAF “replaced the chairman of the inquiry court in the middle of the investigation and appointed the vice marshal, who headed the directorate that issued the SOP, to conduct the investigation,” Sharma added that despite his seniority, he held no supervisory role and his role as a member of the combat team was limited to the maintenance and availability of equipment and communications.