India shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and one other military aircraft during fighting in May, India’s air force chief says, the first such statement from the country since the deadly conflict with its neighbour.
Air force chief Amar Preet Singh made the announcement on Saturday, weeks after India’s military acknowledged that an unspecified number of its own jets were also shot down by Pakistan during their heaviest fighting in decades. It involved fighter planes and cruise missiles and killed dozens of people.
The conflict was triggered after armed men killed 26 tourists in India-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam town on April 22.
Speaking at a military lecture in the southern city of Bengaluru on Saturday, Singh said India’s S-400 air defence systems took down most of the Pakistani aircraft.
“We have at least five fighters confirmed killed and one large aircraft,” he said, adding that the large aircraft, which could have been a surveillance plane, was shot down at a distance of 300km (186 miles).
“This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about. Our air defence systems have done a wonderful job,” he was quoted as saying by several Indian media outlets.
Air Chief Marshal Staff Singh did not mention the type of fighter jets that were downed but said air strikes also hit an additional surveillance plane and “a few F-16” fighters that were parked in hangars at two airbases in southeastern Pakistan.
Half of the F-16 hangar at the Shahbaz Jacobabad airbase in Sindh province was destroyed, he said.
Islamabad, whose air force primarily operates Chinese-made jets and US F-16s, has previously denied that India downed any Pakistani aircraft during the May 7-10 fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
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