Following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April 2025, which claimed the lives of 25 Indian and one Nepali citizen, the Indian Armed Forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ in the early hours of 07 May 2025. The Indian government stated that the operation targeted terrorist infrastructure at nine locations across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, emphasising that no Pakistani military installations were struck. It described the strikes as focused, measured, and non-escalatory.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly stated that at least 100 terrorists were killed during the operation. However, Pakistan stated that at least 26 civilians were killed and 46 others injured in the missile strikes. In response, cross-border shelling by Pakistani forces reportedly led to the death of at least sixteen civilians in Jammu and Kashmir. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, along with Col. Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, addressed the media on 07 May 2025 to brief on Operation Sindoor. During the briefing, they released visuals showing the Indian Armed Forces striking the targeted sites. Reportedly, Pakistan has claimed to have shot down Indian jets (here and here). Reuters reported that US officials have said that Pakistan’s jet brought down two Indian Military aircraft on 8 May 2025. However, there is no official confirmation or evidence of the same as of 09 May 2025.
In this context, a video (here, here, here, and here) showing what appears to be an Indian Air Force fighter jet engulfed in flames while people stand around watching is going viral on social media. The clip is being shared with captions like “Long live Pakistani Army,” implying that the Indian jet was shot down by Pakistani armed forces. We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The video shows an Indian fighter jet on fire that was shot down by Pakistan on 7 May 2025.
Fact: The viral clip is AI-generated, it is not from a real incident. Hence, the claim is Misleading.
Firstly, to check the veracity of the claim, we performed a keyword search to see if any official government sources (here, here, and here) or credible media outlets had reported the viral video, claiming it shows an Indian fighter jet that crashed or was shot down during or after Operation Sindoor. This search did not yield any credible information validating the viral claim.
Next, upon analysing the video frame-by-frame, we noticed common hallmarks (here and here) of AI-generated content, notably, distorted and smudgy human faces. At one point in the video, the face of a man in a maroon shirt splits unnaturally into two — a glitch often seen in AI-generated videos.
To verify this, we ran the video through Hive’s AI Content Detection tool. The tool assessed a 72% likelihood that the clip was AI-generated. This, combined with the unnatural distortions, strongly indicates that the video is not real.
To sum up, an AI-generated video is being falsely shared as real footage of an Indian Air Force jet on fire.
