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
Viral video allegedly shows the rescue operation after Saurya Airlines crashed at Kathmandu Airport.
Fact
Video shows 2019 footage of the Summit Air plane crash at Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Everest region.
A video allegedly showing the rescue operation after an aircraft owned by Saurya Airlines crashed at Tribhuvan International airport in Kathmandu is going viral on TikTok. A Saurya Airlines aircraft with 19 people onboard crashed and caught fire shortly after taking off from Kathmandu airport.
In this context, TikTok user @pramod_701 posted a video showing the security personnel engaged in a rescue operation after an air crash. Text superimposed on the video reads, “The current situation of the plane. The Saurya Airlines aircraft that crashed today was made 21 years ago. The plane was taking off for Pokhara for maintenance, and there were 19 people onboard including aircraft technicians and pilot Manish Shakya, who was rescued alive.”
The video posted on July 24 has garnered 10.1k likes, 812 users have shared it and 197 people have commented until the time of publishing this article. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check / Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took a key frame from the viral video and ran a reverse search on Bing. The reverse search threw up several results matching the aircraft wreckage seen in the viral video. On checking a video, dated April 14, 2019, we found that the crash site and the aircraft photo matched the viral video—though it was not the exact footage.
Further, we found several articles carrying photos and videos resembling the frames from the viral video (See here, here & here), pointing us towards the accident of a Simrik Airlines plane that crashed during take-off in Tenzin-Hillary airport in Lukla, the gateway to Mt Everest, in April 2019.
A video, dated April 14, 2024, posted on YouTube by an account named Niroj Sedai, we found that the video shows the crash of Simrik Air aircraft with call sign 9N-AMH in Lukla. The aircraft had slammed into a fence before colliding with two parked helicopters, killing copilot Sujit Dhungana and two policemen on the ground.
Further, we checked another video published on a YouTube channel named Revmandu and found the video frames resembled the viral video. Thus, our findings clearly indicate that viral video shows the footage of Simrik Air plane crash at Lukla airport in the Everest region.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show the rescue operation after the crash of the Saurya Airlines plane in Kathmandu. The viral clip is actually from April 2019, and shows the response to Simrik Air crash in Lukla Airport.
Result: False
Sources
Niroj Sedai/YouTube, April 14, 2019
Revmandu Sherpa/YouTube, April 14, 2019
Asia News Network, April 15, 2019
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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.
