Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
An aircraft that took off for Nepal from Malaysia filled with thick smoke, leaving the passengers terrified
Fact
Old video showing passengers of Rayanair plane bound for London from Bucharast
A video showing terrifying moments after thick smoke filled the cabin of an aircraft allegedly bound for Nepal from Malaysia is going viral on TikTok. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
TikTok user @roysurendra100 posted a video showing panic-stricken passengers crying and screaming after smoke started billowing into the cabin of an aircraft. Text superimposed on the video reads, “OMG what happened in this plane flying to Kathmandu from Malaysia today 18 March, 2023.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on March 17 has garnered 303 likes, 5 people have shared and 11 users have commented on it until the time of publishing this article.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker split the video into several keyframes and conducted a reverse search on them. The results indicated that video was filmed inside the cabin of Rayanair plane.
Taking clues from the viral video and results shown by reverse image search, we conducted a search on google with the keyword ‘Rayanair plane cabin filled with smoke’ which threw up several results. On checking an article published on the Independent online 23 January, 2020, we found that the article carried a video which somewhat matched with the viral video. Though the video accompanying the news didn’t match entirely with the viral video, the sound of a panic-stricken woman screaming in the background exactly matched with the sound of the video.
The article confirmed that the video showed the moment when smoke began to billow into the cabin of Rayanair Boeing 737-800 that took off from Romanian capital Bucharest in January 2020. The flight to London Stansted had to return to Otopeni airport minutes after take-off due to an emergency.
We also found another video of the Rayanair plane incident published on the verified Facebook page of Daily Mail Video. The video also matched with the viral video.
Further, we looked up the original video on YouTube and found a video whose frame exactly matched the viral video. However, the video posted on a YouTube channel named ‘Main Hoon Kisan’ only three days ago didn’t have any authentic information.
Our investigation indicated that the viral footage show a terrifying moment when think smoke filled the cabin of Rayanair plane shortly after it took off from Romanian capital Bucharest in January 2020.
Conclusion
An old video of terrified air passengers screaming after smoke poured into the cabin of Rayanair aircraft is shared with a false claim. The viral video doesn’t show a Nepal-bound plane that took off from Malaysia.
Result: False
Sources
Independent.co.uk 23 Jan, 2020
Daily Mail Video /Facebook, 17 March, 2023
Main Hoon Kisan
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
