A minute-long video of a seemingly injured man in military fatigues is being widely circulated on social media with claims that he is an Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot whose plane was struck down by Pakistan during the recent military conflict between the two countries. The footage shows several individuals assisting him and a parachute entangled in a nearby tree. After some time, a military chopper can also be seen.
This clip is among a series of unverified visuals that have gone viral after India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting nine terror camps in Pakistan. Shortly after, Pakistan retaliated with heavy mortar shelling in forward villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch and Rajouri areas of Jammu and Kashmir. The LoC is an over 700-km de facto military border separating the two countries. The strikes by the Indian forces came a fortnight after terrorists, with alleged links to Pakistan, killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir. As of May 13, a ceasefire is underway but the situation remains tense. Both sides have claimed they managed to inflict significant damage to the other. In this context, the pilot’s video is being circulated by many Pakistan-based social media accounts to hint that Pakistan had an edge over India since their planes were being downed.
X user Zafar Shirazi shared the clip on May 9 and claimed that an Indian fighter jet had crashed. The caption says that it wasn’t clear whether the pilot ejected from the jet himself, or if Indian forces shot down the plane he was flying mistakenly, or if he was captured by Pakistan. At the time of writing this, the post had nearly 850,000 views. Another Pakistan-based handle @HarisJ828 also shared the video. This post had over 1.5 million views at the time this was written. (Archived versions of these posts are here and here.) Several other social media users from Pakistan also shared the video, amplifying similar claims.
Fact Check
A reverse image search of some key frames from the video led us to the same video uploaded on Facebook on March 7, 2025 by PTC news. The caption said: “Indian Air Force fighter plane Jaguar crashes” with the hashtag Ambala air base.
Building on this, we performed a keyword search that led us to several news articles from March 7, 2025, when an Indian Air Force Jaguar fighter jet crashed in Ambala.
PTC News reported that the fighter jet crashed near the Baladwala village, Morni, after taking off from Ambala air base for a training flight. It said that the pilot narrowly escaped the crash by ejecting himself from the plane with a parachute. News agency PTI, too, had reported on the incident.
According to a Times of India report, at around 3:30 PM on March 7, two Morni residents working near the area where the plane crashed heard a loud noise and saw smoke rising and rushed there. They found aircraft wreckage and the injured pilot. Villagers quickly gathered at the scene and offered the pilot water, which he declined. Soon after, an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter, along with IAF officials, police personnel, and fire tenders, arrived at the crash site. The report added that villagers commended the pilot for skillfully steering the aircraft away from residential areas, thus averting a potential disaster.
A post on the official X handle of the Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) from March 7 confirmed the chain of events. It said that the crash happened due to a system malfunction and that before ejecting safely from the aircraft, the pilot ensured that the jet was away from any habitation.
A Jaguar aircraft of the IAF crashed at Ambala, during a routine training sortie today, after encountering system malfunction. The pilot maneuvered the aircraft away from any habitation on ground, before ejecting safely.
An inquiry has been ordered by the IAF, to ascertain the…
— Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) March 7, 2025
Additionally, a fact-check report by India’s Press Information Bureau, or PIB, also confirmed that the viral video being linked to the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions was actually from March 7, 2025, two months before India launched Operation Sindoor.
🚨 Old IAF Plane Crash Video Shared in False Context ❌
A video of an IAF plane crash is being falsely shared in the context of the current India-Pakistan situation.#PIBFactCheck
✅ This video shows a Jaguar aircraft of the IAF that crashed in Ambala during a routine training… pic.twitter.com/mOT186mPJx
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) May 10, 2025
To sum up, the video of the injured Indian Air Force pilot is from March 7, two months ago, when a Jaguar fighter jet crashed near Ambala during routine training. It has no relation to the India-Pakistan conflict.
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