Pakistani soldiers search the crash site of a Pakistani Navy reconnaisance plane shot down by India INTERACTIVE: Key dates in India-Pakistan relations VIDEO CNN's Andrea Koppel reports on U.S. reaction to the continued conflict between India and Pakistan (August 10) Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Satinder Bindra reports on both sides of the dispute (August 10) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K MESSAGE BOARD: India-Pakistan relations

August 11, 1999
Web posted at: 1:46 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT)

In this story: Both sides display pieces of wreckage Pakistan: Kashmir is source of troubles RELATED STORIES, SITES

NALIYA, India (CNN) -- The Indian Air Force said Wednesday that Pakistan fired surface-to-air missiles at military helicopters carrying journalists to view the border crash site of a Pakistani reconnaissance plane shot down by Indian jets.

But Pakistani army spokesman Brig. Rashid Qureshi, while confirming that Pakistan fired a missile, said it targeted Indian jet fighters that tried to approach Pakistan's airspace.

"Two helicopters also approached," Qureshi said, "but they were not engaged."

CNN's Satinder Bindra, aboard one of the helicopters, said he was told when they returned to the air base at Naliya, India, that pilots saw a flash "consistent with surface-to-air missiles" and took evasive action.

"While in the air, I noticed that the helicopter I was in banked very steeply." Bindra said, adding that he feared a crash.

On Tuesday, an Indian MiG-21 shot down the Pakistani reconnaissance aircraft near a disputed border area dividing India's Gujarat state from Pakistan's Sindh province. Both sides accused the other of provoking the attack, which killed all 16 military personnel aboard the twin-engine, French-built aircraft.

Pakistan's Defense Cabinet Committee met Wednesday to discuss a response to the attack, and warned that "violations of Pakistan's airspace would be considered as hostile acts."

"The DCC expressed its strong condemnation of this wanton and cowardly act and warned that Pakistan would be fully justified in making an appropriate response in self-defense," a DCC statement said.

Wreckage of the Pakistani plane was strewn across both sides of the border, CNN's Bindra said, but the two nuclear neighbors argued over where the plane was when it was shot down.

India said the reconnaissance plane was on a spying mission and ventured into Indian territory off the Gujarat coast. Pakistan said the plane was unarmed, on a routine training mission and well within its own territory when it was shot.

Both countries displayed what they said were pieces of the plane's wreckage found on their side of the border. Pakistan showed video of smoldering wreckage in a swampy area near Sir Creek.

India showed pictures of a plane's flight manual, part of the cockpit and part of a wing, displayed in Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's office in New Delhi.

Pakistan's Qureshi said Indian troops landed at the crash site in Pakistan before Pakistani forces arrived, took some pieces of the downed plane and carried them back to India.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said Wednesday that incidents like Tuesday's airborne attack would not end until India's dispute with Pakistan over the Himalayan Kashmir region has been settled.

"Our relationship will remain brittle until Kashmir is solved," Aziz said before Wednesday's meeting of the DCC.

India and Pakistan fought an undeclared war over the Himalayan region, claimed by both countries and split by a volatile Line of Control, for 11 weeks earlier this year.

Since the two gained independence in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought three wars -- two over Kashmir.