In a tragic incident an IAF Jaguar crashed on 9 July. Post the crash some Pakistan based social media accounts on X posted a viral claim. A user on x, with the account ‘Raad_Pak’ claimed “India caught, hiding its dead pilot against Pakistan. The Indian Air Force says that today’s Jaguar aircraft (JS159) killed its 2 pilots, who were flying a single seat aircraft. It simply means that India just reported the casualty of another pilot who was killed on May 7.
Another user from the account ‘TheDailyCPEC’ claims “BREAKING: India claims two pilots died in today’s Jaguar (JS159) crash, despite it being a single-seat jet.
This shows India has quietly added the death of a pilot lost in the May 7 incident with Pakistan.”
These accounts claim that the Indian government had concealed the news of the death of one of their pilots on May 7 and also provided false information on the number of people killed in the crash of the plane (9 July).
Fact Check
The DFRAC team examined the viral claim that swept the internet, and it turned out to be fake. During our search we found that the IAF Jaguar which crashed on 9 July was NOT one seat as claimed in the viral post on X. It had TWO seats and two pilots were there. We have gone through the internet and found an article published by ‘The Hindu’. The article entitled “Two pilots were killed in the third Jaguar jet crash of this year” was released on 10 July. The article also reports that, “Training aircraft on a routine sortie suffered technical glitches which compelled pilots to land in a field in Rajasthan. Defence officials say; IAF is the only airforce that has been flying two-seater Jaguars, which they inducted in the 1970s.” This makes it clear that the aircraft was a two-seater.
PIBFactCheck This fake news is garbage and the IAF_MCC pilot is safe and on duty and presently deployed. This Facebook post of PIB indicates that no pilot was killed on 7th May, the viralized claim was a hoax.
Conclusion
Sifting through all the valid sources, we confirm that the viral claim is deceptive. The Pakistani users assert that the IAF Jaguar crashed on 9 July was single-seater and the report published in the Hindu confirms it was two-seater. PIB cleared the narrative that a pilot was killed on May 7 by a post on 29 May, on X. The viral claim is, therefore, FAKE.
