Ghosts in the Noise Floor: No. 24 Squadron and the Electromagnetic Decapitation of Operation Sindoor
1/ When the May 2025 crisis detonated across the Line of Control, Pakistan’s first combat aircraft over the ridgeline were not J-10Cs slinging PL-15s, they were the two silver-grey Falcon DA-20s of No. 24 Squadron “Blinders,” running electronic support measures 40 kilometers inside their own airspace and staring straight through India’s assault packages. The squadron’s motto, first to fly in, last to fly out, is more than swagger; for thirty-eight years the Blinders have been the PAF’s airborne scalpel, their DA-20s carrying racks of wide-band jammers and crystal receivers that map every hostile emitter in real time.
Operation Sindoor began at 1:05 a.m., when the Indian Air Force launched 30–40 sorties of Su-30MKIs and Rafales carrying BrahMos and Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Israeli Heron drones orbited for BDA. Strike vectors were chosen through radar shadow zones in the mountains, and no aircraft crossed the LoC, India’s objective was political, not military. Civilian structures were targeted from standoff range to minimize escalation, while numerically superior IAF formations, four strike packages totaling over 70 aircraft, attempted to stretch PAF response across multiple axes. The main axis, led by the 17th “Golden Arrows” Squadron, deployed nearly all flyable Rafales, 14 out of 18. This was India’s steel fist. Or so they thought.
What they didn’t account for was what came before the PL-15 volley. The DA-20s were already there.
Within minutes, Link-16 and MIDS channels went black. Rafale wingmen, unable to see their flight leads on the Multi-Function Displays, began shouting bearings over degraded single-sideband radio, until one shouted into silence as his leader exploded mid-air. Pakistan later released these cockpit recordings during the 11 May ISPR briefing. There was no response from Delhi.
This was not merely communications denial, it was surgical signal removal. The aircraft were flying at ultra-low altitude, beyond the horizon of Pakistani ground-based jammers. The jamming could only have come from the air. Yet Pakistan has no Y-8G electronic warfare aircraft in its inventory. The ISPR made no mention of jamming platforms and yet the effect was total. The Blinders were the invisible hand behind the curtain.
The kill chain that followed was pure systems warfare. Erieye AEW&C aircraft stitched together the battlespace, relaying precise intercept vectors. J-10Cs rose from ground alert in 4-ship flights. The Blinders lit up the Meteor uplinks with high-gain spot jammers, denying mid-course updates. Indian missiles went dumb. PAF missiles did not. PL-15Es, fired from 150+ km, punched through degraded ECM bubbles and slammed into IAF aircraft still clinging to terrain-following tactics meant for older missile generations.
Wreckage rained down across Pulwama, Akliyan Kalan, and Pathankot. Some aircraft were hit on final approach, landing gear down. The IAF misread the kill geometry, believing PAF fighters had violated Indian airspace, when in fact, they had not. It was the missile envelope, not the pilot, that crossed the border.
By 1:30 a.m., the IAF was finished. Su-30s, Rafales, MiG-29s and MiG-21s scrambled blindly, only to meet another volley. A MiG-29 fell near Akhnoor. Another Mirage or Rafale was vaporized 15 km from Srinagar. A massive French drop tank jettisoned over Pampore signaled mass retreat. The PAF did not pursue. The engagement ended.
