Four-year-old photo of Chinese aircraft edited to claim Pakistan Air Force plane crash

Amid foreboding about a possible military conflict between India and Pakistan against the backdrop of the Pahalgam attack, an image of a fighter plane that seemingly crash landed is doing the rounds on social media. The Pakistani flag is visible on the vertical stabilizer of the plane. The photo is being shared with the claim that it depicts a J-10C aircraft belonging to the Pakistani Air Force which crashed in the Mianwali area during the Zarb-e-Haideri training exercise.

A user named Ghatak made the same claim while tweeting this picture. (Archived link)

Riccha Dwivedi, chief editor of New India Junction, also tweeted the image. (Archived link)

A user named Subodh Sharma also tweeted a picture of the damaged plane in which the Pakistani flag is attached. (Archived link)

Fact Check

Alt News performed a reverse image search of the viral picture on Google, which led us to another version of it shared on X (Twitter) by a user named Simon Harley on October 23, 2021. This makes it clear that the photo in question is at least four-year old. In the tweet, Harley has mentioned that this is a Chinese fighter jet J-10. In addition, the flag of Pakistan is nowhere to be seen in this picture.

Chinese J-10 jets hatch underwater and then crawl to land in search of avgas. pic.twitter.com/NeTy0yw41V

— Simon Harley (@simonharley) October 23, 2021

We also performed a keyword search using related terms. This led us to an article on a website named Defence Blog, in which the viral picture and other pictures of the plane crash were shared. According to this report, the image shows a J-10 fighter plane of China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force crashed into the Jialu River in Henan province on October 22, 2021.

We also found a report from October 23, 2021 on a website named Taiwan English News which contained the viral image. The report mentions that a J-10S fighter plane of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force crashed into a river in Henan province on October 22, 2021. A video related to the plane crash is also included in this article. 

Many social media users also posted the footage of the Chinese aircraft crash on social media on October 22, 2021. 

🇨🇳 a PLAAF J-10 trainer aircraft allegedly made emergency landing on Jialu River (賈魯河) in Henan province this morning (Oct 22). 2 pilots ejected from the fighter and landed on the river too.

1/n pic.twitter.com/mOltd7FidS

— Byron Wan (@Byron_Wan) October 22, 2021

Aviation news website Aeroflap also covered the crash on October 23, 2021 with images of the damage from different angles. The images found in all these articles clearly show that the plane did not have any Pakistani flag on it. This means that the viral image has been edited and the Pakistani flag was added later. The difference between the original image and the edited image can be seen in the graphic below.

To sum up, several users and journalists shared an edited image of a crashed Chinese fighter jet and claimed that it was a J-10C aircraft belonging to the Pakistan Air Force that crash landed.