Major misfire: Why did an Indian missile land in Pakistan?

An Indian missile
landed nearly 124 kilometres into Pakistan territory on Wednesday triggering a
wave of worries in a politically volatile region. Pakistan first broke the news
on Thursday when it said that an unarmed Indian missile landed on their
territory. On Friday, the Indian government acknowledged that “technical
malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.”

Experts say it is
extremely rare for a missile test to go wrong. So, what happened here?

While there is
limited information on what exactly went wrong, an Indian Express report
suggests that the missile changed coordinates mid-air. This is being deemed as
extremely surprising because experts are of the opinion that the change of
direction while in flight is a striking phenomenon.

“It flew, it took
a path, that path was not normal, then it took a different direction, after
doing nearly 100 km,” said Anil Chopra, a retired Indian Air Marshal, who
currently heads the Centre for Air Power Studies, a policy think tank based out
of New Delhi.

Chopra, speaking
to the Indian Express, said there are very few reasons for a missile to change
direction such. “First thing could be that the coordinates are not correct. But
in this particular case, the missile has gone in a particular direction and
then turned. If it was wrong coordinates, it should have gone straight there.”

“Because…normally
it will turn only in the last stages. So, the type of turn she has taken, that
means the coordinates could not have been wrong,” he said.

The other
possibility, according to Chopra is, that if somebody used cyber means to jam
the missile mid-flight, he conjectured. He added that a missile of the sort comes
with a self-destruct switch which could have been deployed when it was realised
that it had changed direction.

Could Pakistan
have brought it down?

The Pakistan military
said the Air Defence Operations Centre of its Air Force picked up a “high-speed
flying object” inside Indian flying territory. It said that it was aware that
the missile had taken off from Sirsa, and changed its course suddenly towards
Pakistan territory.

Tactical actions
in accordance with Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), and kept monitoring it
as soon as it turned towards Pakistani territory, the country’s military said.
It did not intercept the incoming missile, which was unarmed.

What sort of
missile was it?

There has been no
official confirmation on the kind of missile involved. Pakistan as described
the missile as supersonic and unarmed. Experts have speculated that it was a
BrahMos, a missile developed jointly by India and Pakistan. Other experts have
speculated it could have been a variant of the nuclear capable Prithvi.