Just a week ago, Pakistan was boasting of recording a longest range air-to-air kill during Operation Sindoor as it claimed to have shot down an Indian jet from a distance of 200 kms using a Chinese fighter jet-borne PL-15 missile.
However, when asked about a proof, they just go numb and remain at a loss for words. While Pakistanis were celebrating, the fake claims didn’t age well. Indian Air Force Chief Amar Preet Singh on Saturday dropped a fresh bombshell, decimating the Pakistani propaganda.
On Saturday, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh disclosed the first concrete details of a strike that, according to military officers, may be unprecedented in modern air warfare a type of engagement seldom documented publicly.
Speaking at a lecture in Bengaluru, Singh revealed that one of the targets destroyed on May 7 was a large Pakistani airborne platform possibly an ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) or AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft brought down from roughly 300 km away, setting a rare record in air combat history. The IAF chief also said that India has evidence of the kill and it can be talked about.
Singh also termed the strike as ‘the largest-ever recorded surface-to-air kill’.
As reported by The Indian Express, a senior officer from the Indian Air Force said that hitting a target from 300 km away would mark the farthest-known surface-to-air kill on record, not the biggest in scale, but the most distant in range. The Air Chiefs pointed remark, that we can talk about, was a subtle nod to the challenges of verifying such operations worldwide, since the wreckage almost always lands within the borders of the targeted nation. The officer added that long-range kills are seldom made public, either due to the difficulty of independent confirmation or because the military prefers to keep such capabilities under wraps.
Notably, India achieved the kill using a Russian-made S-400 air defence system, rechristened as ‘Sudarshan’. India has taken delivery of three out of the five S-400 air defence systems it ordered from Russia, with the units positioned along the frontiers facing Pakistan and China. Earlier this month, the Defence Acquisition Council cleared a comprehensive annual maintenance agreement for the S-400 fleet.