The Indian Air Force has formally admitted for the first time that it shot down its own Mi-17 helicopter and killed seven Indians in the post-Balakot dogfight on February 27.

“Our missile hit the helicopter and this has been established…. It was a big mistake on our part. We admit it,” Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria said on Friday at his first media conference as the air chief.

Six air force personnel and a civilian on the ground had died in the crash at Budgam in Kashmir.

The official disclosure came 219 days after the incident. The interlude was marked by a wave of triumphalism and the general election that was swept by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Centre had slipped into high propaganda gear to tom-tom the disputed results of the Balakot strikes but at no point in the run-up to the poll did it show the same enthusiasm on sharing information on the chopper tragedy.

Even an unofficial IAF admission, based on a preliminary inquiry, was made only after the elections in May.

The helicopter tragedy had taken place on the same day the plane of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was shot down and he was captured by Pakistan which later released him.

On Friday, Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria said: “We have already taken administrative action, and disciplinary action is being taken against two officers. Necessary steps have been taken so that such an incident doesn’t repeat.”

Moments before the press conference, the IAF showcased the Balakot strikes in a promotional video. Later, some TV channels started showing it as the original video of the Balakot air strike.

A month after the incident, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and a few others had suggested friendly fire might have brought the helicopter down but the government and the IAF said a court of inquiry was underway.

The friendly fire took place when Pakistani planes had raided Indian territory a day after New Delhi had launched air strikes on Balakot, Pakistan, in retaliation to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack.

According to the court of inquiry, the helicopter was downed by a surface-to-air missile of the IAF, which mistook the chopper for a hostile aircraft, sources said.

It said the crucial Identification Friend or Foe system on the Mi-17 was switched off — a violation of the standard operating procedure. The report has attributed the accident partly to a lack of coordination between the air traffic control and senior IAF officers.