On the morning of February 27, 2019, Pakistani fighter aircraft crossed the Line of Control (LoC) near Naushera, in what they called Operation Swift Retort — a retaliatory strike on India to avenge the previous day’s strike by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on a terrorist establishment in Balakot, in Pakistan.
In the fog of war that prevailed that morning, both sides claimed downing a fighter from the other side. But what went uncontested was that a single missile, fired at an IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter from an Israeli Spyder quick reaction surface-to-air missile (QRSAM) system that the IAF had deployed