Six Pakistan aircraft destroyed during May conflict, says IAF air chief

India's Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh said the Pakistan Air Force suffered the loss of several aircraft in the air during Operation ‘Sindoor'. (Janes/Akhil Kadidal)

Nearly three months after the conclusion of a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in May, India's Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh has claimed that six Pakistani military aircraft were destroyed during the clash.

Speaking at a keynote lecture at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Management Academy in Bangalore on 9 August, ACM Singh said the Indian Air Force's (IAF's) S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems were responsible for the “confirmed kills” of several Pakistan Air Force (PAF) combat aircraft.

These included at least five fighter aircraft and “one large aircraft”, which could have been either an electronic intelligence (ELINT) or an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, ACM Singh said.

The large aircraft “was taken out at a distance of 300 km”, he added.

India launched Operation ‘Sindoor' on the night of 7 May against nine locations across Pakistan. New Delhi claimed that the nine sites were terrorist camps. However, the strikes, which attracted a response from Pakistan's military, escalated into a series of counter-responses by both countries until 10 May, when a ceasefire was introduced, Janes previously reported.

In contrast to satellite imagery evidence presented on the Indian strikes on the terrorist camps and on radar sites, ACM Singh did not present visual data during the keynote lecture to support his statements on PAF aircraft losses. He said, however, that feedback information from S-400 missiles indicated whether the impact of the missiles could be “treated as a kill or not”.