How many Pakistani jets India shot down in Op Sindoor? IAF confirmed 5, experts say 'evidence' of more

International military aviation analyst and historian Tom Cooper backed Indian Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh’s recent assertion that India shot down five Pakistani air force jets during Operation Sindoor . While Pakistan continues to deny the claims, Tom Cooper, a renowned Austria-based aerial warfare expert, has said that what ACM Singh noted was just a “confirmation of something that was more or less known since May”.

Earlier this week, Singh maintained that India’s S-400 systems struck at least five Pakistani jets and one big airborne early warning aircraft. Pakistan denied Singh’s claim. However, during an interview with ANI, Cooper noted that Indian firepower remained dominated during the four-day military escalation between India and Pakistan.

“We have seen evidence of not only five but even more Pakistani aircraft being shot down. We have also seen evidence for even more Pakistani aircraft being destroyed on the ground. But there was no official confirmation from the IAF, not even from the government of India. Therefore, this is a nice confirmation for something that was assessed already back in May,” Cooper said in an interview with ANI. 

A world record was made

Cooper identified the Pakistani early warning and control aircraft as a Saab 2000. The Austrian aviation expert went on to endorse Singh’s claim that the successful strike from a range of 300 km was a world record.

“It is the longest range confirmed shoot-down by a surface-to-air missile. This is a historic achievement,” he said, lauding the extraordinary feat of the IAF, mentioning that the other instance of such an attack was recorded in the Russia-Ukraine conflict , where the weapon system was shot down at a distance of 200 km.

“This is a significant fact because we have seen IAF deploying its S-400 surface-to-air missile system very close to the border to Pakistan, so close that it was actually firing missiles from within the range of Pakistani army’s artillery, which meant if it would stay, its presence of the firing unit in question would have been detected by Pakistanis too early, Pakistanis could have shelled the area in question, hit and destroyed this firing unit. So it was quite a risky operation, actually,” he told ANI. 

It is pertinent to note that Tom Cooper is not the only expert to endorse Singh’s assessment. Earlier, well-known military strategist John Spencer maintained that Operation Sindoor marked India’s decisive victory.

With inputs from ANI.