3 Indian Air Force officers were fired for accidentally launching a supersonic cruise missile into nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan

The nuclear-capable BrahMos missile, jointly developed by India and Russia, has a range of 180 miles.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images

• India sacked three air force officers who accidentally fired a supersonic missile into Pakistan.
• The mishap occurred during routine maintenance due to a "technical malfunction," India said.
• The Indian Air Force said the three officers had deviated from the standard operating procedure.

India's Air Force said on Tuesday that it sacked three officers for accidentally firing a BrahMos supersonic cruise missile into neighboring Pakistan in March.

An official inquiry into the mishap "found that deviation from standard operating procedure by three officers led to the accidental firing of the missile," the air force said in a statement, per Reuters. 

The BrahMos missile is a nuclear-capable cruise missile developed jointly by Russia and India, with a range of 180 miles and Mach 3 speed capability.

The accident occurred during routine maintenance when a "technical malfunction" caused the missile to fire from the garrison town of Ambala and into Pakistan's Punjab province, the Indian Ministry of Defence said on March 11.

No one was reported injured or killed in the incident.

Pakistan had tracked the missile's flight and prepared for a retaliatory strike, but held off when its assessment flagged that something was amiss, Bloomberg reported.

The country demanded answers from the Indian government, which responded by saying that it was an accident and calling the incident "deeply regrettable."

The two nations have long been at odds with one another since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, and tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have been heightened as a result of recent border skirmishes over the territory of Kashmir.

In 2019, Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane in response to airstrikes targeting militants in the Pakistani-controlled town of Balakot. India said it had carried out the strikes in retaliation for a suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Researchers say a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which together hold 2% of the world's nuclear arsenal, could have devastating global consequences, Insider previously reported. One scenario the researchers posited is that the Earth's temperature would drop by 5 degrees Celsius due to the sheer amount of smoke particles lingering in the stratosphere that would block out sunlight for years.

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