A deepfake video of Air Chief Marshal AP Singh where he appears to say that he had warned the Indian government about not inducting the Tejas fighter jet in the Indian Air Force (IAF) is circulating as real.
In the video Singh also appears to compare the Tejas aircraft, India's indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), to an Indian snack 'samosa' because of its shape. BOOM found the video has been manipulated using AI technology.
The video and a fake statement of Singh where he praises the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) have surfaced after a Tejas fighter jet crashed at the Dubai Air Show on November 21, 2025. Wing Commander Namansh Syal was killed in the crash.
Claim 1: Video shows IAF chief comparing Tejas' shape to a 'samosa'
The footage is being shared with an Urdu caption that translates to, "The Indian Air Chief himself admitted that the Tejas is a samosa".
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Claim 2: Singh said IAF pilots will be sent to Pakistan for training because the PAF is 'way ahead'
A user on X shared a photo of Singh and wrote, "Air Chief Marshal AMAR PREET SINGH on the crash of Tejas: "We have lost enough jets in recent times. Pakistan Air Force is way ahead of us and I won't mind saying that, once relations between Pakistan and India improve, we will send our pilots to Pakistan for training"."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
What We Found: Viral Claims About IAF Chief Are False
1. Video Is A Deepfake: We ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from Singh's speech. The search led us to a Hindustan Times article from October 3, 2025 where the image was credited to news agency Press Trust of India.
According to the article Singh was addressing a press conference at that time. Taking it as a cue, we searched on YouTube with relevant keywords and found the live stream of the IAF chief's October 3, 2025 press conference on ANI's official YouTube channel.
The visuals in the live stream matched the visuals seen in the viral video. However, we did not find any moment where Singh can be heard warning the Indian government about Tejas or advising against it. The conference also predates the Tejas crash.
Furthermore, we tested the video on AI video detector tool Hive Moderation, which concluded with 96.5 percent confidence that the video contains AI generated or deepfake content.
2. Viral Statement Is Fake: . The central government's misinformation debunking unit, PIB Fact Check, refuted the claim and confirmed that the IAF chief has made no such statement as claimed in the viral posts.
