When an Indian Air Force Tejas fighter jet crashed during a display at the Dubai Air Show, the images spread rapidly across social media: a sudden loss of vertical reference, a plunge, an explosion of flame. The IAF later confirmed the pilot sustained fatal injuries and ordered a full court of inquiry. As India grieved, another reaction emerged, not from aviation specialists, but from Pakistan’s ever-active propaganda ecosystem.
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Islamabad’s social-media networks, influencers, and unofficial spokespersons seized on the tragedy to push a familiar narrative: Tejas is unsafe, unreliable, unfit for export, and proof that India’s defence ambitions are failing. Yet when stripped of theatrics and online noise, the reality that emerges is starkly different. Pakistan’s propaganda blitz is unlikely to dent India’s indigenous fighter-jet programme for one simple reason: global aviation is built on evidence, not emotion.
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