Earlier, a leading American magazine had reported that none of the F-16s in Pakistan given by America are missing, contradicting India’s claim that one of its fighter jets were shot down by Indian airforce.
“Two senior US defense officials with direct knowledge of the situation told Foreign Policy that U.S. personnel recently counted Islamabad’s F-16s and found none missing,” the publication said in a report published on Thursday.
Now the Indian Air Force on Friday said it had proof that a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet was indeed shot down in the February dogfight.
In a statement, the Air Force said: “The Indian Forces have confirmed sighting ejections at two different places on that day. The two sightings were at places separated by at least 8-10 km. One was an IAF MiG 21 Bison and other a PAF aircraft. Electronic signatures gathered by us indicate that the PAF aircraft was a F-16.”
Journalists were shown the radar tracks of the air battle that took place across the LoC near Jhangar, which lies between Rajouri and Nowshera.
The radar tracks recorded by airborne warning and control aircraft show the presence of an F-16 aircraft in the vicinity of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s MiG-21 Bison. In the very next frame of the AWACS picture, eight seconds later, the symbol for the PAF F-16 aircraft is missing indicating what IAF sources say is a shootdown of the jet.
IAF officials told a national daily that a Pakistani fighter aircraft of a particular ‘call sign’ went missing after IAF’s Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman shot it down using his MiG-21 Bison jet during the dogfight with the PAF that day. They said the Pakistani aircraft was an F-16 and enemy radio transmissions which were monitored showed that it did not return to its base.
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