A new report has revealed that the aerial combat between Pakistan and India on the night of May 6–7 involved around 110 aircraft, marking it as the world’s largest air battle in decades.

 

During the conflict, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shot down as many as six Indian fighter jets, including Rafales, the French-made aircraft considered the crown jewel of India’s fleet, which had never been downed in combat before.

 

An interview of two Indian officials by Reuters and three Pakistani counterparts reveals that a major factor behind the Indian losses was an intelligence failure regarding the range of the China-made PL-15 missile, launched from Pakistan’s J-10 fighters.

 

Citing the Indian officials, the report states that erroneous intelligence gave Rafale pilots a false sense of confidence that they were outside Pakistani missile range, which they estimated to be only about 150 km.

 

“We ambushed them,” the PAF official was quoted as saying, adding that Islamabad conducted an electronic warfare assault on New Delhi’s systems in an attempt to confuse Indian pilots. Indian officials have disputed the effectiveness of those efforts.

 

An air warfare expert at London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank told Reuters, “The Indians were not expecting to be shot at,” adding, “the PL-15 is clearly very capable at long range.”

 

According to Pakistani officials, the PL-15 missile that struck the Rafale was fired from a distance of approximately 200 km (124 miles), while Indian officials claim it was launched from even farther away. That would make it one of the longest-range air-to-air strikes recorded.

 

Delhi has not acknowledged the downing of a Rafale; however, France’s air chief told reporters in June that he had seen evidence confirming the loss of that fighter, along with two other Indian aircraft, including a Russian-made Sukhoi.

 

Multi-domain operation

 

While four Pakistani officials told Reuters that they created a “kill chain,” or a multi-domain operation, by linking air, land and space sensors, the two officials explained that the network included a Pakistani-developed system, Data Link 17, which connected Chinese military hardware with other equipment, including a Swedish-made surveillance plane.

 

Experts say the system lets the J-10s flying near India get radar data from a surveillance plane farther away, allowing the Chinese-made fighters to switch off their own radars and fly without being detected.

 

With five Pakistani officials claiming that an electronic assault on Indian sensors and communications systems reduced the Rafale pilots' situational awareness, two Indian officials have disputed this, saying the Rafales were not blinded during the skirmishes and that Indian satellites were not jammed. However, they acknowledged that Pakistan appeared to have disrupted the Sukhoi’s systems, which India is now working to upgrade.

 

The long-hour battle occurred following the April 22 Pahalgam incident in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), killing 26 people, including a Nepalese national.

 

New Delhi accused Islamabad of orchestrating the attack, a claim Pakistan vehemently denied, and offered a transparent international investigation into the incident, which India rejected.