By: Annie Priya
January 17 2023
False: Video shows the Yeti Airlines aircraft crashing and bursting into flames near a road in Pokhara, Nepal.
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
A 2013 video from Afghanistan has been falsely shared as the recent 2023 plane crash in Pokhara, Nepal.
Claim ID 09308ab0
Context
On January 15, 2023, a Yeti Airlines flight crash carrying 72 people from Nepal's capital Kathmandu to Pokhara killed at least 70 people. The rescue team used drones and rappelled down 200 meters (656 feet) deep gorge on January 17 to search for two missing passengers after the Himalayan nation's deadliest plane crash in 30 years.
Soon after the incident, several social media users started sharing unrelated visuals and images linking to the recent crash. One such video, tweeted by the user 'Chandan48430579' shows a plane hitting the ground and bursting into flames, with a Hindi caption that says, "Pokhara Nepal Plane Crash — Plane crash in Pokhara in Nepal. Over 16 bodies were recovered from a plane that had 72 people on board. #Nepal #planecrash." It has been viewed over 400k times.
However, this video is old and unrelated to Nepal's recent plane crash.
In Fact
A reverse image search of a screenshot from the video led us to an identical YouTube video posted by CNN on May 2, 2013, with the caption, "How the 747 crashed in Afghanistan." In a video of around 50 seconds, we see a plane falling from the sky, hitting the ground, and bursting into flames. One can see the similarities in both videos — for example, in both videos, one can see a white van on the road as the plane crashes into the ground.
Subsequently, taking a cue from the video posted by CNN, we found a corresponding article published along with the same video on July 15, 2015, by the Guardian. The article stated that a Dubai-bound Boeing 747-400 plane crashed after takeoff from Bagram air base in Afghanistan on April 29, 2013, killing six crew members. Officials of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Afghanistan found "critical safety deficiencies," including a failure by National Air Cargo.
Thus, it is evident that the video of the plane crashing into the ground is from Bagram, Afghanistan, and has no connection to the recent 2023 plane crash in Nepal.
The Yeti Airlines plane's black box, which records flight data, was recovered on January 16 and will be handed to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). District police chief Ajaya KC said that foggy weather was making the search difficult, and authorities have planned to use drones to locate those missing when the weather improves. Meanwhile, officials said that the investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, with assistance from French investigators.
The Verdict
An old video of a 2013 plane crash from Afghanistan is being falsely shared as visuals from the 2023 Nepal crash. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.