Pakistan continues to deny that one F-16 was shot down by Indian Air Force yesterday when they tried to target Indian military bases with Laser-Guided bombs, and even say that F-16 jets were not even used in the operation. But now more evidences are coming to suggest that not only F-16 jets were used, but one them had gone down yesterday.
When the photos of crashed jets were published on Wednesday, it was already mentioned that they show the wreckage of two jets. Due to this, initially Pakistan had claimed that they had shot down two Indian fighter jets, and two Indian Air Force pilots were captured by them. But later India had confirmed that only one plane, a MiG-21 Bison, was lost by India, and one pilot was in Pakistan’s custody. This had meant the wreckage of the other plane had to be from a Pakistani jet, which was shot by Indian fighter jets.
After analysing the photographs, Indian Air Force had confirmed today that one of the photographs show parts of an F-16 jet. A part of wreckage matches with the engine of the F-16 jet, and it does not match with any part of MiG-21, IAF experts had affirmed.
After that, Indian security forces had found a part of a missile in India which is carried by F-16 jets. The wreckage came from a missile fired by Pakistani Air Force jets yesterday, and one part of had the marking AIM-120C. This marking means that it is an Amraam missile, which is not used by India, but used by Pakistani Air Force on its F-16 jets.
Some Pakistanis had tried to prove that actually this missile was sold to Taiwan, based on a batch number on the wreckage which is common for a particular batch of production. It was quickly pointed out that missile of the same batch number was sold to Pakistan also.
Social media uses in Pakistan had uploaded videos of the wreckage of the jets, and in one of the videos, we have noticed another evidence that suggests that some of the wreckage come from an F-16 fighter jet.
In this video, we can see that the Pakistani military is loading some parts from the crashed planes on a truck. They are seen loading a large cylindrical tank on the truck. After analysing, we have found that this component looks like a drop tank attached to F-16 jets.
Drop tanks are external fuel tanks used in fighter planes, which can be jettisoned after the fuel in them is used.
F-16 and MiG-21 both carry drop tanks, but the tanks used by MiG-21 are difference in size and shape. They are thinner, and have much more pointed and elongated ends. While the drop tanks of F-16 are bigger in diameter, and the tank seen in the video is similar in size and shape of an F-16 drop tank.
The images above show that the tank which was loaded on the truck does not match with the MiG-21, and the jet has no other part that looks like this. On the other,
These evidences make it clear that F-16 jets were used by Pakistan in their attempt to attack Indian military bases, and one F-16 fighter jet was shot down by Indian jets while chasing them away from Indian airspace.
