The Ambassador of France to New Delhi has denied that Pakistani pilots were trained to fly the Rafale aircraft for the Qatari Air Force. This clarification comes after ainonline.com, an independent media firm which focusses on the aviation sector reported that "the first batch of pilots trained for Qatar in November 2017 were Pakistani exchange officers." According to Jon Lake, the author of the piece, "Escadron de Chasse 04.030 was established at Mont-de-Marsan as the Qatar Rafale Squadron on Oct. 1, 2017."