F-16, JF-15 among five Pakistani jets shot down during Operation Sindoor: IAF

The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Friday (October 3) said Pakistan’s five fighter jets, including US-made F-16s and China’s JF-17, were shot down by India during Operation Sindoor.

IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh said that India struck a large number of Pakistan’s airfields during Operation Sindoor.

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Operation Sindoor was launched in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly tourists.

“As far as Pakistan's losses are concerned, we have struck a large number of their airfields and we struck a large number of installations. Because of these strikes, radars at least four places, command and control centres at two places, runways of course damaged at two places, then three of their hangars in three different stations have been damaged,” Singh said during his remarks at the 93rd Air Force Day celebrations.

Further, he stated, “We have signs of one C-130 class of aircraft...and at least 4 to 5 fighter aircraft, most likely F-16, because that place happened to be F-16 with whatever was under maintenance at that time. Along with that, one SAM system has been destroyed...As far as the air defence part is concerned, we have clear evidence of one long-range strike, which I talked about more than 300 km, which happened to be either an AEW&C or a SIGINT aircraft, along with five high-tech fighters between F-16 and JF-17 class, this is what our system tells us.”

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He said long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) achieved the longest kill with more than 300 kilometres of range. “Our long-range SAMs that we had procured recently and operationalised. We could look deep inside their territory. We could make sure that they were not able to operate even within their territory up to a certain distance. It will go down in history as the longest kill that we achieved of more than 300 kilometres by that. And it seriously curtailed their activities.”

Singh said a clear mandate was given to the Armed Forces and this war was started with a clear objective and terminated in a quick time.

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“A clear directive, a clear mandate was given to the Indian Armed Forces... It stands as a lesson which will go down in history that this is one war that was started with a very clear objective and it was terminated in a quick time without just prolonging it. We are seeing what is happening in the world, the two wars that are going on, there's no talk about termination. But we could make them reach a stage where they ask for a ceasefire, ask for termination of hostilities. And also, we took a call as a nation to terminate those hostilities because our own objectives are met. I think this is something that the world needs to learn from us,” he said.