During a recent military conflict between India and Pakistan in May 2025, the Pakistan Air Force tried to shoot down India’s powerful BrahMos missile but failed miserably.
The missile was too fast, flew too low, and was too advanced for Pakistan’s fighter jets and missile systems to track or stop.
This incident showed the strength of India’s missile technology and the weaknesses in Pakistan’s air defences.
Pakistan Failed to Intercept India’s BrahMos Missile During 2025 Conflict
In a major air conflict between India and Pakistan in May 2025, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) tried and failed to shoot down India’s air-launched BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.
According to some sources, Pakistan used its JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, armed with Chinese-made PL-12 air-to-air missiles, to stop the BrahMos mid-flight. But the attempt was unsuccessful.
The BrahMos-A missile, launched from India’s Sukhoi Su-30MKI jets, was simply too fast and flew too low for Pakistan’s systems to track or lock onto.
The missile travels at speeds of Mach 2.8 to 3 (about 3,700 km/h) and uses a terrain-hugging flight path, making it hard to detect on radar. It also lacks a booster stage, so it reaches its top speed within 20–30 seconds of launch, giving Pakistan’s jets almost no time to react.
India launched “Operation Sindoor” in May 2025, striking 11 of 12 major Pakistani air bases with around 15 BrahMos-A missiles and other weapons.
These missiles were launched both from the air and from ground platforms. The operation aimed to weaken Pakistan’s air power early in the conflict.
Two Pakistani JF-17 jets on patrol tried to intercept one of the BrahMos missiles inside Pakistani airspace.
Although Pakistani radars likely spotted the launch, the jets couldn’t catch up. The PL-12 missiles they carried, with a top speed of Mach 4 and a range of up to 100 km, couldn’t lock onto the fast-moving missile.
This isn’t the first time Pakistan struggled with the BrahMos. In 2022, a BrahMos missile was accidentally fired from India and flew 124 km into Pakistan.
It went completely undetected and unchallenged by Pakistan’s air defense systems, including the Chinese HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles.
After that 2022 incident, Pakistan tried to come up with new ways to counter BrahMos, such as using fighter jets and air-to-air missiles like the PL-12.
But during the 2025 conflict, those strategies failed again because the BrahMos-A version behaves very differently as it’s faster and harder to detect due to its stealthy flight path and speed.
The BrahMos-A missile has several features that make it extremely difficult to intercept:
Speed: It travels at nearly Mach 3.
Low flight path: It flies close to the ground or sea, avoiding radar.
Stealth: It has a low radar cross-section, making it hard to see.
ECCM (Electronic Counter-Countermeasures): It’s hard to jam or mislead electronically.
Quick acceleration: It gets to top speed almost instantly.
Even Pakistan’s advanced Chinese-supplied systems like the YLC-18 radar and HQ-9 SAMs couldn’t stop it.
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These systems have limited response times and struggle with high-speed targets like BrahMos.
This failure by the PAF shows how far ahead India is in missile technology and airstrike capability.
The BrahMos, developed jointly by India’s DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya, successfully hit key Pakistani bases including Nur Khan, Sargodha, Bholari, and Jacobabad.
After the attacks, Pakistan was forced to move its remaining aircraft to safer bases farther away. The operation exposed serious weaknesses in Pakistan’s air defence, especially those relying on Chinese technology.
