FAKE ALERT: Old photo from Libya shared as Indian jet shot down by Nepal – Times of India

CLAIM
Habitual fake news peddling Twitter handle Irmak Idoya posted two images to claim that an Indian jet was shot down by Nepal after “Indian Airforce crossed the border to conduct airstrike in Nepal territories”.
The images tweeted by Idoyo are of a burning jet and some wreckage in some farmland.
Idoya used those images to claim that India conducted an airstrike in Kot Kharak Singh Pernawan near India-Nepal border, in response to which Nepal shot down an Indian jet and killed two Indian pilots.

TRUTH
The photos are old and from Libya and Bengaluru. India carried out no airstrike in Nepal.
VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY
We ran reverse-image search on both the pictures and found the original source
Image 1

It was traced to a report dated March 20, 2011 from The Oregonian. In the report titled ‘Libyan jet shot down over Benghazi’, the photo was captioned as ‘A Libyan pilot ejects from his plunging fighter jet over Benghazi on Saturday.’ The image was credited to Associated Press.

Image 2

We found a report dated February 2, 2019 from The Statesman. Titled ‘IAF, HAL to jointly probe Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft crash in Bengaluru’, the report carried the same image with a caption that reads ‘The site where Indian Air Force‘s (IAF) Mirage-2000 fighter crashed at a military airport in the Bengaluru’s eastern suburb on Feb 1, 2019.’
The image is credited to news agency IANS.

Additionally, the Fact-Check arm of the Press Information Bureau put out a tweet refuting claims of India conducting any airstrike in the neighborhood.

VERDICT
Times Fact Check has found that old, unrelated images from Libya and Bengaluru are being used to falsely claim that Nepal shot down a Indian jet and killed two Indian pilots. Further no airstrike was conducted in Nepal by Indian Airforce.