A short clip made to appear like footage of the deadly plane crash in Nepal on Jan. 15 is circulating in Facebook (FB). It is false: The video shows an incident in Russia.
On Jan. 18, an FB user published the video with the following text: “Nepal plane crash, 11:00am, 15th January 2023. Yeti Airlines’ 9N-ANC”
The short video showed amateur footage of an aircraft tipping to one side before crashing to the ground and bursting into flames. A reverse image search revealed that this incident did not happen in Nepal.
The footage was actually over a year old. In the original August 2021 video posted on Telegram, two eyewitnesses in the background expressed shock as the aircraft crashed in the town of Kubinka, near Moscow, Russia.
Reports from foreign media organizations in August 2021 corroborate this. Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation had confirmed to the press that a light military transport plane, Il-112V, crashed in the Kubinka airfield, killing all three passengers.
It is the second time VERA Files Fact Check flagged a video passed off as footage of the Nepal incident. (Read GTA V gameplay FALSELY labeled as Nepal crash footage)
Fact-checking organizations abroad have also debunked the video with the same false context circulating in their local social media spaces.
This video made the rounds online a week after Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crashed in Pokhara, Nepal, which killed at least 71 people.
The video with the erroneous context was published as a reel, FB’s short-form video format, and has since received more than 11,200 reactions, 850 comments, 2,900 shares and 1.9 million views.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
