India’s tri-service press conference included a display of a missile’s remnants as proof that Pakistan not only intruded upon the Indian airspace but also used an F-16 to fire a missile there.
While Indian experts have denied the claim on a technical basis, a media report suggests that the remnants belong to a missile sold by the US to Taiwan.
India’s top military presented the remains of a US-originated missile as evidence that the Pakistan Air Force used F-16 in its aerial operations. They claimed that the missile can only be launched by an F-16 jet. They also claimed that the Indian Air Force (IAF) did shoot down a PAF F-16 that resulted in a loss of MiG-21.
The missile remnant can be identified as an AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM. The wreckage also displays a contract serial number of the missile as FA8675-05-C-0070.
The said media report used Google search to find that the keyword AMRAAM with the said serial number is associated with A US Department of Defense (DoD) document titled ‘Report to Congress on Department Of Defense Sales of Significant Military Equipment to Foreign Entities Fiscal Year 2009.’
The document revealed that the contract number FA867505C0070 matched with a batch of AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles that were supplied to Taiwan in lieu of a Foreign Military Sale valuing $2.38 million.
The document raises a question as to how the wreckage of a missile sold to Taiwan made it to the hands of an Indian military air vice marshal.
The said document can be reached here.
Via: ExpressTribune
It’s spelled “Taiwan”, not “Taiwan” as in that screenshot, so it can’t be an official document. It’s probably photoshopped / faked. This should’ve been obvious before posting this article.
Same document, available at the Homeland Security Digital Library.
https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=713544