Why Pakistan Could Shoot Down Indian Jets—A Foreign Post-Mortem

Since the first missiles flew, one question has dominated global coverage: how did the Pakistan Air Force knock so many Indian fighters out of the sky? Drawing on open-source evidence and interviews with foreign officers, this reconstruction lays out the tactical edge Islamabad achieved—with Chinese-supplied J-10C fighters, PL-15 missiles and early-warning data—and the self-inflicted handicaps that left New Delhi off balance on the opening night.

Image source: Getty Images

1. The sounds that woke Akalia Kalan
   At 2 a.m. on 7 May residents of the tiny village in northern India heard engines they did not recognise, followed by a rapid string of bangs. A fireball streaked overhead and slammed into the fields; two villagers died and two Indian pilots ejected, bloodied but alive. The wreckage was one of several aircraft India is now known to have lost. Islamabad claims six kills, including three brand-new French Rafales; New Delhi denies the tally but no longer denies the losses. Quietly, senior officers admit the score was driven less by faulty jets than by flawed choices.
2. A political ceiling and an empty rack
   The crucial turn came in June, when a recording surfaced of India’s military attaché in Jakarta, Captain Shiv Kumar, telling an Indonesian audience that Delhi’s political leadership had barred the air force from striking Pakistani air-defence sites on night one. Instead, pilots were ordered to hit only militant camps—targets already hardened by years of low-grade conflict. “After we took losses we shifted to their military infrastructure,” Kumar said. Defence Chief General Anil Chauhan later echoed the point, blaming “tactical lapses” for the early setbacks and noting that two nights later, with rules loosened, Indian missiles began reaching Pakistani bases.

Foreign analysts add three technical footnotes:
• India’s Rafales flew without their Meteor long-range missiles, either to avoid escalation or because planners assumed Pakistan would not engage at distance;
• the fleet lacked up-to-date electronic-warfare pods and threat libraries against the PL-15;
• mission-planning data—maps, radar profiles, jamming codes—were stale, making it easier for Pakistani AWACS to cue the J-10Cs.

3. The blame game at home
   Opposition politicians now accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi of covering up the scale of the debacle and refusing to brief Parliament. Congress spokesman Jairam Ramesh has demanded an all-party meeting and a special session to discuss “why the PM is hiding the truth.” The controversy is already colouring India’s next big fighter contest: a 114-jet tender in which Rafale’s maker, Dassault, faces Saab, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Some Indian officers argue the Rafale under-performed; others complain Dassault will not release source code, limiting local customisation. Dassault CEO Eric Trappier calls Pakistan’s claim of three downed Rafales “pure fiction,” promising that “when the full story comes out, many people will be surprised how good the Rafale really is.”
4. Fallout in Paris—and in the fields
   In the French National Assembly, MP Marc Chavent has asked whether the Rafale’s SPECTRA electronic-warfare suite failed against the PL-15 and if France will now fund a dedicated electronic-attack variant. Customers from Egypt to Qatar are watching closely. Meanwhile, in Akalia Kalan, Raj Kumar Singh’s widow, two children and elderly mother still wait for compensation. “They want to bury what happened here,” a neighbour says, staring at the scorched earth where the jet came down.