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According to DG ISPR of the Military of Pakistan, Gen. Asif Gafoor, on 27th February 2019, Pakistan Air Force's jets engaged IAF's jets and "shot down two IAF jets".

On the same day, India claimed that they shot down a Pakistani F-16. In the video it could be seen that, during the press briefing, before reading out the statement, the spokes person of Indian Ministry of External Affairs, said

"Namashkar! Good afternoon! I welcome you all to this media briefing. I am joined by Air Vice Marshal R G K Kapoor. I will read out a prepared statement on recent developments on India-Pakistan front. We will not take any questions after my statement. ..."

while the assistant chief of Air Staff of the IAF Air Vive Marshal RGK Kapoor was sitting completely silent. Also, reading a prepared statement, and not taking questions afterwards seemed to be fishy.

During the press conference on 27 February 2019, Gen Gafoor said:

"... apart from that, I was watching Indian media said that they too shot down one of the F-16s of Pakistan. First thing to say is, Pakistan has not used any F-16 particularly in this entire action, or there is no such news that any of the Pakistan's jets were down. Now let us talk about...".

After more than 32 hours of the original incident, at the evening of the next day, 28th February 2019, India showed a wreckage of, allegedly, an AIM-120C5 AMRAAM missile. RGK Kapoor was seen reading out from a pre-prepared written statement. Also, personnel from one of the Indian ministries was seen to be administering the event.

Pakistan's Foreign office dubbed Indian claim as "completely baseless".

Secondly, there was not much row seen from the US-side regarding the use of F-16s by Pakistan.

Was any Pakistani F-16 really shot down by Indian Air Force on that day?

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Over a year later, we can say this claim is very unlikely to be true. In April 2019, Foreign Policy magazine reported that according to two anonymous US officials, Pakistan is not missing any F-16s. The US has not made any further statements on the matter as far as I can tell. One might argue that the US has some interest in covering this up, but it's not clear to me that they do. More significantly, I don't see any independent verification of the evidence or documentation India claims to have.

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    Thanks for your answer. Your answers are always informative to read. I came across this news article : Last week, Foreign Policy quoted an unnamed U.S. defence official as saying that the U.S. had physically counted PAF F-16 planes and “all aircraft were present and accounted for.” Responding to questions on the issue later, a U.S. Defence Department spokesperson said they “weren’t aware” of any such investigation.
    – user56730
    Jul 28, 2020 at 16:58
  • India lying to fuel nationalist fervor. What a shocker.
    – dan-klasson
    Dec 26, 2020 at 19:42

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