Indian Navy operates a variant of Buk missile system which brought down MH17

The Indian Navy operates a variant of the Russian Buk medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) that reportedly took down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday.

The Indian Navy operates a variant of the Russian Buk medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) that reportedly took down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday.

The Delhi-class destroyers and Talwar-class frigates are armed with the Buk missile system, known as Shtil in the navy.

"It is a fully-automated system with high single-shot kill probability. It's vital for the air defence of these warships," a senior naval officer said.

"The missile can be launched within seconds of a target being classified as hostile. Surveillance radars fitted on warships have a range of more than 300 km."

The NATO reporting name for the radar-guided missile is SA-17 Grizzly. An earlier version was called SA-11 Gadfly. It can deliver a 70-kg warhead up to an altitude of 30 km.

The missile is designed to destroy high-performance aircraft flying at supersonic speeds, incoming missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and helicopters. Fire-control radars can track up to 12 targets simultaneously.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces operate variants of the Buk SAM.

Buk 9k37 missile system in action