As New Delhi and Islamabad traded tit-for-tat fighter jet, missile, drone and artillery attacks across their contested border in May 2025, a video was shared in posts that falsely claimed it showed the wreckage of an Indian fighter jet that had come down in Pakistan. The video has in fact circulated since April 2025 in reports about a Pakistani air force jet that crashed on a training mission within the country.
“Funeral of Indian fighter jet held in Pakistan. Pakistani people are putting out the fire with sand,” reads the Bengali-language caption of a Facebook video posted on May 7, 2025.
The video shows the burning wreckage of a crashed fighter jet, with some individuals speaking in Punjabi trying to put out the flames by throwing sand and dirt on it.
It was shared as India and Pakistan engaged in four days of intense fighting in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades. More than 70 people on both sides were killed in the jet fighter, missile, drone and heavy artillery attacks which came to a halt on May 10 after the announcement of a ceasefire (archived link).
The conflict was sparked by an attack on tourists by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing — a charge Pakistan denies.
Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on May 25, 2025
The video was also shared alongside similar posts on Facebook and Instagram.
The footage, however, does not show a crashed Indian jet during the latest conflict.
Training flight crash
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage posted on Instagram by online news outlet eTimes Pakistan on April 16 (archived link).
“A Pakistan Air Force Jet has crashed near Vehari City,” reads its caption, referring to a city in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Screenshot of the falsely shared video (left) and the Instagram video (right)
Pakistan news outlet Dawn used a still from the video in its report about the crash on April 16 (archived link).
According to the Dawn report, the aircraft “was on a training flight but crashed due to some technical fault”.
AFP previously debunked similar posts that misrepresented visuals from the same crash here, and has debunked other false claims related to the latest India-Pakistan conflict here.
