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.
At least 68 people died in the worst domestic air disaster when Yeti Airlines flight NYT 691 crashed shortly before landing at the newly inaugurated Pokhara International Airport on January 15. The plane carrying 72 people, including the crew members, took off from Kathmandu Airport at 10:33 local time, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). In the wake of the tragedy, a video purporting to show the ill-fated Yeti Airlines plane before and after the crash is making the rounds on TikTok. Newschecker found the video to be edited.
The 20-second video shared by TiTok user @rabinbhandari274 shows smoke billowing from a moving aircraft in flames. The same video also shows a man filming an inferno site emitting a huge plume of smoke. Text superimposed on the video reads, “An aircraft caught fire in Pokhara today, 25 people have been confirmed dead.” A tragic song about the uncertainty of life is played in the background.
The video shared on January 15 has garnered 28 likes and two users have shared it and two people have commented until the last count.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker closely observed the video and found that the video has used two different footages and the first footage shows a PIA aircraft leaving a trail of smoke. Then we took a keyframe from the video and enlarged the image and noticed the A320 written on the top right corner of the screen. Taking it as a clue, we searched on YouTube using a keyword ‘PIA A330 Plane crash’ and found a video whose frame from 0.10minute timestamp onwards exactly matched the viral footage. The video was posted on a YouTube Channel named Runsame on May 23, 2020.
Further, we took another keyframe from the second footage seen in the video and conducted a reverse image search on google. The search threw up several results matching the frame from the viral video. On checking an article about Yeti Air crash in Nepal published in India.com online, we found a twitter video of the Air crash incident in Pokhara embedded in the article. The video was posted on Twitter by Jaya Mishra. We found the video frame matched the second footage from the video shared in social media. The footage captures the general public’s response shortly after Yeti Airlines Plane crashed in Pokhara.
Our findings clearly show that the video is edited by using two different footages—the first one showing PIA aircraft in Karachi, Pakistan in May 2020, and the second one showing the people gathering to see the crash site of Yeti Airlines plane in Pokhara on January 15, 2023.
Conclusion
The video purporting to the crash of Yeti Airlines plane in Pokhara is edited as the first part of the footage shows a PIA A320 crash in Karachi though the second footage used in the video shows the crash site of Yeti Airlines plane in Pokhara.
Result: Edited
Sources
YouTube Video by Runsame
News Report by India.com
Twitter by Jaya Mishara
News Article by The Kathmandu Post
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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.
