Pakistan says it shot down five Indian military aircraft, including the advanced Rafale jets, during the cross-border engagement between the two nuclear-armed neighbours on Wednesday.
India has not confirmed the downing of its jets, but reports quoting local officials say a few aircraft crashed on the side of India-administered Kashmir.
The incident has put the spotlight on Pakistan’s JF-17 jets that were recently equipped with China’s most advanced long-range air-to-air PL-15 missiles.
As tensions were rising with India, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) last week released footage of its JF-17 jets, showing they were carrying PL-15, a missile that China developed for its fifth-generation J-10 stealth jets. Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) published this article on Wednesday (7 May), a day after air combat between Pakistan and India.
If Pakistan has used PL-15 to shoot down Indian jets, then this would be the first time this long-range missile was used in a live combat, says Khalid Chishti, a former PAF air commodore and fighter pilot.
What’s even more striking is that the pictures shared by PAF showed a version of PL-15, which is exclusively meant for China’s own military use and not destined for the export market that has a shorter range.
“I was at a Pakistan air base recently to make a documentary and I asked the pilots what’s the range of the missile and they said it’s 200 kilometres plus,” says Chishti.
The PL-15E is the export version and has a range of 145 km.
“This missile has a longer range than Meteor missiles, which India’s Rafale jets carry,” says Chishti.
Pakistan’s JF-17s have also been equipped with the advanced radar known as the
Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) that enables it to use the missiles more effectively.
“Human eye can only see up to a few kilometers, rest is done by the radar and not by the missile. To start with, you have to show the path to the missile and that can equally be done by a competent radar,” says Chisti.
Losing Rafales can be a major setback for the Indian government, which has spent billions of dollars on equipping its air force with the Paris–based Dassault Aviation’s multirole jet.
“India must sit back and worry about what they did wrong. It’s a big loss. These missions – the one they were coming in for – are well rehearsed and well calculated in peace times, months in advance,” say Chishti.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government would have a hard time pacifying its voter base if the Pakistani claim is independently verified as it would be a repeat of the embarrassment he faced during similar escalation in 2019.
In February 2019, Pakistani air force shot down an Indian MiG-29 jet and captured its pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who has become the subject of countless memes in Pakistan.
Back then, a Pakistani F-16 had also used a long-range missile to shoot down India’s MiG.
At the time, India had claimed shooting down a Pakistani F-16 as well but US officials later confirmed that they had counted the jets in Pakistan’s inventory and found none missing.
“We invited the Americans and asked them to count the F-16s and they confirmed that they had counted them. Now the Rafale company should also come and say they have counted Indian jets. Ethically they should do that,” says Chishti.
