April video of Pakistani aircraft crash shared with false claims that Pak took down Indian Rafale jet

Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan after the Indian armed forces launched a military strike on May 7, a 17-second long video showing a group of people surrounding the crashed remains of an aircraft was viral. Several social media users have shared this with the claim that Pakistan’s defence forces struck down an Indian fighter jet in the vicinity of Bahawalpur. Additionally, they also claimed that a pilot died in the crash.

These visuals follow India’s “non-escalatory” action against nine sites of “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Labelled Operation Sindoor, these strikes come in the aftermath of the April 22 terror attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which terrorists with alleged links to Pakistan-based outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, killed 26 civilians.

X account @CPEC_UPDATE posted the viral video of the aircraft remains on May 7 and alleged that the Pakistan forces had downed a Rafale near Bahawalpur and the pilot had been killed. Since this account has been withheld in India, we have added the video below, followed by a screenshot of the X post. (Archive) 

 

Note that a Rafale is a fighter aircraft made by France’s Dassault Aviation. It is widely known that India deploys Rafales in the Indian Air Force. Also, in a press briefing on May 7, the Indian armed forces had said that Bahawalpur was one of the areas targeted under Operation Sindoor. At the time this article was written, the above X post had garnered over 450,000 views.

The same video was amplified by other X users, such as @yo2thok and @chandsitara12 with similar claims. (Archives: 1, 2)

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Facebook users also shared the video with similar claims. Screenshots below:

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Fact Check

A reverse image search on one of the key frames of the viral video led us to an Instagram post with the same video uploaded by the handle @falakser334 on April 15, 2025. The caption of the post said “#PakistanAirForce Mirage crashed near Ratta Tibba district Vehari. By the grace of Allah , both pilots ejected safely. No human or commodity loss reported Alhamduillah.”

We also came across the same clip in a YouTube video uploaded by user @Defence_Watch on April 15. The video title reads: ‘A Twin seat Mirage aircraft of Pakistan Air Force has crashed in Vehari. Both pilots ejected safely.’ Alt News also found a similar YouTube short by a different user. 

 

Taking cue from these, we ran a keyword search and came across news reports from PTI, The Economic Times and India TV from April 16 saying that a Pakistan Air Force aircraft had crashed near the Punjab province.

The reports mention that a Pakistan Air Force Mirage V ROSE training aircraft had crashed in the fields of Ratta Tibba, in the suburbs of Vehari district, in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The crash had occurred during a routine flight, reportedly due to a technical fault. Both pilots had ejected safely, sustaining minor injuries, and were taken to a nearby army hospital.

We were also able to find other reports, most notably that of , to corroborate our findings.

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To conclude, a video showing a Pakistani training aircraft that crashed in Pakistan’s Punjab province on April 15, has been amplified with false claims that an Indian fighter jet was brought down by Pakistani forces amid Operation Sindoor.

The post April video of Pakistani aircraft crash shared with false claims that Pak took down Indian Rafale jet appeared first on Alt News.

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