An image showing multiple armed personnel in the dark has been circulating on social media, claiming that it is the first image of a Pakistani Air Force pilot captured by Indian forces. This claim comes in the wake of an assault by the Pakistan Army involving artillery shelling and drone attacks targeting Jammu region, which was successfully foiled by the Indian armed forces.
A Facebook user posted the image with a caption: First image of the Pakistani Air Force pilot captured by India has surfaced.
Check the above post here (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the claim and found it to be false.
Putting the viral visual through Reverse Image Search, the NM team traced the image back to a report dated December 12, 2016, titled: “Turkish fighter jet crashes in southeastern Turkey, pilot ejects.”
Upon comparing both images, we found them to be identical. The viral image is a cropped version of the original photograph featured in the 2016 report.
According to the report, the image shows the aftermath of a Turkish fighter jet crash near the airport in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The F-16 warplane, which had taken off for a training flight from Diyarbakir, crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot successfully ejected and survived the incident.
Thus, we can conclusively say that the viral image claiming to show a Pakistani pilot being captured in India is false.
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