Claim: A video shows Indian Air Force pilot Shivangi Singh landing in the city of Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Fact: The video shows a Pakistani paragliding pilot who made a landing somewhere close to the Lower Dir and Swat District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
On 10 May 2025, a user on Facebook posted a reel that showed a person landing via a parachute. People in the area are seen running towards the person as well. The reel featured an embedded caption in Urdu, which read:
“یہ کوئ فلمی سین نہیں بلکہ انڈین خاتون پائلٹ شولگی سنگھ آزاد کشمیر کوٹلی میں لینڈ کر رہی ہے”
This reads as follows in English:
“This is not a scene from a movie, but Indian female pilot Shawalgi Singh (sic) landing in Azad Kashmir’s Kotli area”.
Fact or Fiction?
Since the name of the pilot had been mentioned in the claim, we first conducted a Google search for “Shawalgi Singh Indian Air Force pilot” to see if there was a pilot by this name. This led us to an article by France 24 about Indian pilot Shivangi Singh, who is currently “India’s only woman Rafale fighter pilot”. Here, “Rafale fighter” is a reference to the “French-made single-seat Rafale jets”. We assumed that this is the pilot the video in the claim was referring to.
Searching for official statements on the matter of an Indian pilot landing in Kashmir, we conducted a search for “DG ISPR Indian pilot” on YouTube. We found a video by Dawn that showed the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) during a press conference on 11 May 2025, where he clarified there was no Indian pilot in Pakistan’s custody. At 0:57, Chaudhry states “We don’t have any pilot in custody” and that this claim is based on rumors circulating on social media. This video by Dawn is part of a larger press conference that was held on 11 May 2025, which can be seen here.
Then, we conducted a reverse-image search of the keyframes of the video in the claim to see if it actually showed an Indian pilot landing in Kashmir. Most of the results that came up were from 10 and 11 May 2025, claiming that a female Indian pilot had landed in Pakistan. However, one result showed that the video had surfaced online as early as 26 March 2025 on Instagram. This meant that the video predates the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which triggered the recent military conflict between Pakistan and India.
The user who posted the video on Instagram, Sharjeel Khattak, is a Pakistani “Paragliding Pilot” and his page has several videos of him paragliding. The caption of the post on Instagram states:
“Landing at Lower Dir, KpK
#paragliding #sharjeelkhattak #pakistan #adventure”
On Khattak’s Instagram page, we also found a video of him, dated 10 May 2025, clarifying that the video allegedly showing an Indian pilot landing in Pakistan (the same video being fact-checked in this article) is false. Rather, he says, the video shows him landing in the area of Swat about a month back.
While the earliest instance of the post says the video shows Khattak landing in the Lower Dir District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the clarification he says he landed in Swat District. However, both Lower Dir and Swat share a border, so the location in the video is likely from somewhere within this region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Regardless, the fact remains that the video appeared online as early as March 2025, predating the Pahalgam attack and the resulting military conflict between Pakistan and India.
Virality
On YouTube, the video was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook, the video was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram, the video was shared here and here.
Conclusion: The video shows a Pakistani paragliding pilot Sharjeel Khattak making a landing, somewhere close to the Lower Dir and Swat Districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pakistan Army’s spokesperson has also denied the claim of having an Indian pilot in custody.
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Background image in cover photo: Forbes India