Claim: An Indian fighter jet crashed in Surat, Gujarat.
Fact: The Tejas fighter jet made an emergency landing after fuel shortage at Surat International Airport. There is no credible evidence of a crash.
On 11 June, X user @NavCom24 claimed (archived) that an Indian combat aircraft had crashed in Surat, a city in Gujarat state. The post says: “#BREAKING: Massive News. It is now confirmed that a Tejas aircraft of Indian Air Force has crashed in Surat, Gujarat. All mobile networks are jammed near the crash site to avoid video evidence.”
The image accompanying the caption purportedly shows the moment the airplane exploded in midair before crashing.
Fact or Fiction?
The Tejas fighter jet did not crash in Surat, Gujarat as claimed by the X user. Instead, it made an emergency landing at Surat International Airport due to fuel shortage on 11 June 2024, according to news reports by The Times of India and Deccan Herald.
Tejas fighter jet made its first test flight in 2001, 23 years after the Light Combat Aircraft programme was initiated in the 1980s in India. A new model of this fighter jet, MK1A was tested on 28 March.
The LCA fighter jet did crash on 12 March 2024 in Rajasthan, which is the first such accident in 20 years, according to Hindustan Times. But it has no connection with the instance of an emergency landing in Surat which took place earlier this month.
Soch Fact Check also conducted keyword searches but could not find any news reports about mobile and cellular networks being jammed in Gujarat around the time the fighter jet made an emergency landing.
We also reverse image searched the picture of a jet exploding in midair and found that it shows a crash which occurred in Bangladesh in May 2024.
Two Bangladeshi air force pilots attempted a low-altitude air manoeuver which proved deadly, killing the commander, whereas the co-pilot survived, according to a May 2024 report by the Argentinian publication, Clarin. From the timestamp 00:30 to 00:35, the video included in the report shows moments from when the aircraft performed the air manoeuver. A screengrab at the 00:30 mark matches the photo in the viral claim exactly.
The pilots attempted to move the plane away from the densely populated area before it crashed. Various reports say the pilots attempted an air trick inspired by the 2022 action movie Top Gun: Maverick.
All the articles carrying the image, which shows the plane exploding in midair, confirm that it actually shows the crash of the Bangladesh air force jet from May 2024.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that a claim on X reporting a plane crash in Surat, Gujarat is false.
Virality
The X post garnered 23,000 views. It was also shared here.
Conclusion: An X post claiming to show a picture of a fighter jet crash in Surat, Gujarat is false. The Tejas fighter jet made an emergency landing at the Surat International Airport due to fuel shortage. There is no credible evidence of a crash. Moreover, the picture in the claim depicts an air force jet crash that occurred in Bangladesh in May 2024, and is entirely unrelated to the incident from Surat.
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Background image in cover photo: Surat city (Wikipedia)
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