By: Rajini KG
January 19 2023
False: This video shows the Ukraine helicopter crash that killed 14 people on January 18, 2023.
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
A video of a helicopter that crashed in Dallas in March 2022 has been misrepresented as a recent helicopter crash in Brovary, Ukraine.
Claim ID cbe78af0
Context
On January 18, 2023, a helicopter crashed in the town of Brovary on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. According to the BBC, fourteen people were killed in the incident, including six ministry officials and three crew members, and 25 others have been injured. Witnesses told the BBC that the pilot attempted to avoid high-rise buildings before the disaster and instead crashed close to a kindergarten. Following this incident, many misleading videos claiming to be of the Ukraine helicopter crash went viral on social media. One such video was posted on Twitter with the caption, "Exclusive video of #HelicopterCrash in which 16 people including Ukraine's interior minister and other senior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash outside #Kyiv in the town of Brovary #HelicopterCrash #Ukraine #UkraineWar." In the video, we can see that parts of the helicopter have broken off, and the helicopter is seen spinning in mid-air.
However, the video is not from the Ukraine helicopter crash. The video in question is of a separate helicopter crash in Dallas, Texas, and was shot in March 2022.
In Fact
The first indication that the video is not from Ukraine is that a person is heard exclaiming in English. The video also shows that the helicopter fell in an area that did not have many buildings. However, in Kyiv, the helicopter that crashed fell into a kindergarten campus, and we can see that there are many buildings nearby.
Through a keyword search, we found that the video in question dates back to 2022. The video was uploaded to the YouTube channel 12NewsNow on March 25, 2022 with the title, "Video shows moment helicopter spun out of control, fell onto empty field in North Texas (sic)." WFFA, a news station in Dallas, also published the same video on the same day. This reveals that the video claimed to be of the helicopter that crashed near Kyiv is, in fact, a 2022 video from the U.S.
The Verdict
A 10-month-old video of a helicopter crash from Dallas, Texas, was falsely linked to a helicopter crash in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 18, 2023. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.