Pakistani media shows old images of crashed IAF aircraft claiming Indian jets shot down post Op Sindoor
Within hours of the news break about India’s Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir on May 7, Pakistani media and social media users shared several visuals linking them to the operation. One such image sowed two crashed fighter planes.
A fortnight after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam had killed 26 people, Indian Armed Forces hit nine sites containing terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK from where attacks against India had been planned and directed. The Union ministry of defence described the action as “focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”, with no Pakistani military facilities having been targeted.
While covering the strikes, Pakistani news channel ARY News ran images of two crashed planes and claimed that these were ‘exclusive’ images of the Pakistan Air Force shooting down Indian Air Force jets.
Pakistani news outlet Pakistan Observer ran both the viral images and claimed that Pakistan had shot down five Indian fighter jets. (Archived link)
Pakistani news outlet Daily Times also published a viral picture of two crashed aircraft and claimed that Pakistani Air Force had shot down two Indian fighter jets in retaliation. (Archived link)
Similarly, many social media users also shared the viral picture and made the same claim. These handles also included that of well-known Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir.
Fact Check
A reverse image search of the viral picture on Google led us to another version of the first picture in an article by the Indian Express dated May 21, 2021. According to the report, Indian Air Force fighter pilot Squadron Leader Abhinav Chaudhary died when a MiG-21 fighter plane crashed in a village in Moga district of Punjab. He was involved in night training at the time of the accident. In other words, this picture is four-year old and has no connection to Operation Sindoor.
We also performed a reverse image search of the second viral picture and came across an article by Dainik Jagran dated September 3, 2024. It stated that on September 2, during a routine night training mission of the Indian Air Force in the Barmer sector of Rajasthan, a serious technical fault occurred in the MiG-29. Due to this, the fighter jet crashed and the pilot was forced to eject. This makes it evident that this picture is also old and has no connection to Operation Sindoor.
News agency IANS had also tweeted a video of this incident on September 2, 2024.
To sum up, Pakistani media outlets shared old pictures of fighter planes crashing during routine training of the Indian Air Force and falsely claimed that the Pakistani Air Force shot down two fighter jets of the Indian Air Force.
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