In his first official comments over losses inflicted on Pakistan in Operation Sindoor, Indian Air Force Chief Air Marshal AP Singh on Saturday said the Indian Air Force (IAF) took down five fighter jets and one large aircraft during the May 7 operation.
“We have at least five fighters confirmed killed and one large aircraft, which could be an ELINT aircraft or an AEW&C aircraft, which was taken out from a distance of about 300 km, which is the largest-ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about,” he said during a keynote address at the 16th Air Chief Marshal L M Katre Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru.
Apart from the aircraft, he added, there are a large number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drones, some of whose missiles had fallen in the Indian territory. He said India recovered them alongside other wreckage which is being studied, “so we can make out what they did, where they were launched from, what route they followed, what kind of systems they had, what generation they belonged to, what kind of features they had, etc.”
He also showed the before and after images of the damage caused in Pakistani territory at Bahawalpur – the headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). “There’s hardly any collateral (damage) here… The adjacent buildings are fairly intact… Not only did we have satellite pictures, but also from local media, through which we could get inside pictures,” he said.
Visuals displayed during an address of Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal AP Singh at the 16th edition of the Air Chief Marshal LM Katre Memorial Lecture, in Bengaluru, Saturday, August 9, 2025. (PTI Photo)
Singh said Indian Air Defence systems have done a wonderful job. “The S-400 system, which we had recently bought, has been a game-changer. The range of that system has kept their aircraft away from their weapons, like those long-range glide bombs that they have,” he said, adding that they have not been able to use any of those because they have not been able to penetrate the system.
The IAF chief also showed that the Shahbaz Jacobabad airfield was one of the major airfields that were attacked. “Here, there’s an F-16 hangar. One half of the hangar is gone. And I’m sure there were some aircraft inside which got damaged there. We were able to get at least two command and control centres, like Murid and Chaklala,” he said.
“At least six radars, some of them big, some of them small…We have an indication of at least one AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) in that AEW&C hangar and a few F-16s, which were under maintenance there… ,” he said.