Old Truthy Crash Image incorrectly connected to South Asia conflict

A photo of Turkish military personnel who arrives at the location of an air crash in 2016 appeared online in posts, in which it was claimed that it had shown a Pakistani fighter pilot arrested in India. The claim circulated as the South Asian rivals, which were more intensive in May in May, but there was no official report on such an incident.

“First photo of the Pakistani fighter pilot, which was recorded by India,” says an X -Post on May 9, 2025, on which a night picture of a group of people is on one field.

“He was trapped in Lathi near Jaisalmer. He is injured,” added the post and refers to a village in the Northwest Indian city.

Around 70 people were killed for four days of intensive fights in May between nuclear neighboring neighbors India and Pakistan, which were triggered by a fatal attack on tourists from armed men in Indian cashmere. Neu -Delhi accused Islamabad for the attack that Pakistan denies (Archived Link).

A ceasefire on May 10 ended the intensive tit-for-tat drone, the rocket, the air combat and artillery exchanges, and both sides have agreed to withdraw their troops in peace positions by the end of the month.

Screenshot of the wrong contribution on May 21, 2025

Similar claims appeared on X and Instagram, while several Indian news media items contained the same picture.

However, there was no official reports that a Pakistani military pilot was captured in Jaisalmer on May 22nd.

An opposite image search on Google found the picture, which was published on December 12, 2016 by Photo Agency Getty Images and AFP (archived link) was credited.

The photo signature of the photo in the AFP archives is: “The Turkish military personnel arrives near a Turkish F16 war plane that crashed on December 12, 2016 in Diyarbakir” (Archived Link).

The country's military said that the combat aircraft crashed near an airport in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, but the pilot has certainly ejected, according to the caption. “The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but the government said that an investigation had been initiated.”

The incident was also reported by the state anadolu agency of Türkiye, which said that the Jet had crashed during a training session (Archived Link).

The Pakistani media organization Geo Fact Check exposed similar claims about the photo (archived link).

Here you will find AFPS facts of the misinformation that are triggered by the latest conflict between Pakistan and India.