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
Yeti Airlines Plane that took off from Kathmandu crashed again in Pokhara.
Fact
Viral news clip is from January 2023.
A video claiming that a Yeti Airlines Plane that took off from Kathmandu has crashed near Pokhara airport runway is going viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @chandrakc987 posted a news clip reporting that a Yeti Airlines plane crashed near Pokhara airport. Text superimposed on the video reads, “A plane owned by Yeti Airlines that took off from Kathmandu has once again crashed near the runway of Pokhara airport. Details awaited.” In the news clip, the news anchor says, “The plane crash incident has saddened everyone. You can see the after-crash fire in the footage. It has been learnt that security personnel have been deployed at the crash site. The plane had taken off from Kathmandu airport this morning with 68 passengers onboard.” The video clip also shows people moving around a large plume of smoke pouring into the sky.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim, Newschecker ran a search on Google for news about the Yeti Airlines plane crash in Pokhara. The search threw up several news reports on the crash of a Yeti Airlines Plane in Pokhara that took place near Pokhara Airport.
On checking an article, dated January 15, 2023, published on Kathmandu Post online, we found that an image carried in the article somehow matched a frame from the viral video. The news reported that an ATR plane, operated by privately owned Yeti Airlines, crashed just before landing in Pokhara.
The news article pointed us towards the fatal crash of Yeti Airline aircraft that occurred on January 15, 2023. We also noticed the logo of Yoho Television on the top right corner of the viral video.
By using the clues obtained so far, we ran a search on the YouTube channel of Yoho Television and found a video, dated January 15, 2023, carrying a fresh reporting on the . On checking the video, we found that the footage from 0.18-minute onwards exactly matched the viral video.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that the viral news clip purportedly reporting that a Yeti Airlines plane has crashed near Pokhara airport is from January 2023.
Conclusion
No, there is no recent report of Yeti Airlines plane crash in Nepal. The viral clip reporting that a Yeti Airlines plane carrying 68 people has just crashed is from January 15, 2023.
Result: False
Sources
Kathmandu Post, Jan 16, 2023
YoHo TV /YouTube , Jan 15, 2023
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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.
