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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Disasters & emergencies fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about disasters & emergencies. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,259 published reviews in this topic

Factcrescendo Sri LankaDisasters & emergencies

The Yeti Air Hostess Recorded This TikTok Video Few Moments Before The Pokhara Crash!

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerned a selfie video of Yeti Airlines flight attendant Oshin Ale Magar that circulated with the assertion that it had been recorded moments before the fatal Pokhara crash on 15 January 2023. The review says the posts identified Oshin as one of the cabin crew members who died and framed the video as having been filmed shortly before the crash. The investigation focused on when the video appeared on Oshin’s TikTok account. The review reports checking that account and finding the video had been posted on 11 September 2022—about four months before the crash. It also notes that Oshin posted other selfie videos afterward, including one dated 9 January 2023, which it identified as the latest video it found on her channel. These dates contradict the claim that the viral video itself was recorded moments before the crash. The review concludes that the video was uploaded in September 2022, while also confirming that Oshin was among those who died in the crash. Thus, the posts’ identification of her and the tragic outcome did not make their claim about this video’s timing accurate.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Video showing the last moments of ATR 72 domestic aircraft that crashed at the Pokhara International Airport in Nepal

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a social-media video presented as showing the last moments of the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 that crashed at Pokhara International Airport, Nepal, on 15 January 2023. FACTLY reports that it checked screenshots from the circulating video using reverse image search and found a video with similar visuals published by India Today in 2021. That earlier video was titled “Ilyushin Il-112V: Russian military transport aircraft crashes in outside Moscow.” The review identifies the footage as showing a different aircraft and accident: a Russian military transport aircraft prototype, the Ilyushin Il-112V, before its crash outside Moscow in August 2021. It also says AP News reported a photograph with similar visuals as depicting the prototype’s last moments before it crashed during a test flight outside Moscow on 17 August 2021. These details connect the shared visuals to the Russian crash rather than the Nepal ATR 72 disaster. The review distinguishes that older Russian footage from videos published by BBC News and journalists that it describes as showing the ATR 72’s last moments in Pokhara. Its conclusion is therefore about the provenance of the video in the post: despite being shared in the context of the Nepal crash, the footage came from the earlier Russian aircraft crash.

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaDisasters & emergencies

නේපාල ගුවන් අනතුරේ වීඩියෝවක් ලෙස හුවමාරු වන පැරණි වීඩියෝවක්! (Video)

Publisher’s rating: False

The review examines a video shared as showing the Nepal plane crash, which occurred on January 15, 2023. It reports that a Yeti Airlines ATR 72 carrying 72 passengers and crew crashed while travelling from Kathmandu to Pokhara, and that international media reported at least 68 deaths. The review says the circulating video was not found in international media coverage as footage of that crash, so the investigators used InVID reverse-image search to trace it. The review found reports containing the same video dating back to August 2021. Those reports identified it as footage of a Russian Il-112V military transport aircraft that crashed near Kubinka airport, outside Moscow, on August 17, 2021. The review further describes checking visible landmarks: a green church appears in the video, followed by two red-and-white towers, and the investigators say they used Google Earth to locate the church and towers near Kubinka airport. The article’s conclusion is that the video passed off as showing the Nepal crash actually depicts the 2021 Russian aircraft crash. It also includes a January 20 update about other videos circulated as Nepal crash footage. That update treats those as separate clips: it describes one as footage from a Philippine aviation training center and another as a traditional Indonesian Calonarang event, not as evidence about the original video’s provenance.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaDisasters & emergencies

A Video Of The Nepal Plane Crash In Pokhara!

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim concerns a social-media video presented as showing the fatal Yeti Airlines crash while landing at Pokhara, Nepal, on January 15, 2023. The review distinguishes the crash itself from the identity of the circulating footage: it reports that the Nepal crash occurred, but says the video being shared as its final moments was actually from a different plane crash. The review also notes that a separate video showed a passenger livestreaming from the Yeti aircraft shortly before the crash; that detail does not establish that the video in this claim is authentic footage of the Nepal crash. [S1: “A 72-seater passenger aircraft crashed while landing on the runway of the Pokhara International Airport in Nepal on the 15th of January.”; “In the hours after Nepal’s deadliest plane crash in 30 years, a video went viral in India. It showed one of the victims, Sonu Jaiswal, live streaming from the plane just seconds before the crash.”] To check the viral clip, the review says it searched keyframes in reverse and found the same video in media reports from August 2021. Those reports identified it as footage of a Russian Il-112V military transport-plane prototype crashing near Kubinka airfield, outside Moscow, on August 17, 2021—not footage from Pokhara. The review further describes matching visible features in the clip to the Russian location: a church with green tombs and two red-and-white towers. [S1: “A reverse search of the video’s keyframes led us to multiple media reports from August 2021 that contained the same video. As per these reports, the video showed the prototype of a Russian military transport plane, Il-112V, that crashed before landing near Kubinka airfield in Russia’s Moscow on August 17, 2021.”; “Around 26 seconds into the viral video, we noticed a church with green tombs. And at the mark of 36 seconds, we noticed the flight crossing two red- and white-colored towers (likely telecom towers).”] The review says it used Google Earth to locate the church and towers near Kubinka airfield, supporting the identification of the viral clip’s setting. Its conclusion is specific to that video: it does not dispute that the Yeti Airlines crash happened, but finds that the video circulating as footage of that crash originated with the 2021 Russian crash. [S1: “With the help of Google Earth, we were also able to locate the church and the two buildings near Kubinka airfield.”; “Our investigation shows that the video viral on social media claiming to be the Nepal plane crash actually shows a video of a plane crash that took place on August 17, 2021, at Kubinka Airport in Moscow, Russia.”]