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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.

3,262 published reviews in this topic

Fact CrescendoDisasters & emergencies

Claim: he is not the pilot who died in Kozhikode flight crash

Publisher’s rating: False

The review investigated a video circulated as Captain Deepak Sathe’s final song after his death in the Kozhikode flight crash. It describes the clip as showing someone who looked like Sathe, accompanied by a message claiming he had sacrificed himself to save lives and had left behind the song. The review found a clue in the footage: it referred to the Western Naval Command’s golden jubilee. The article notes that Sathe had retired from the Indian Air Force and was working for Air India, prompting the reviewers to question whether the clip could show him singing at a Navy event. To identify the man, the review says it converted a video frame into an image and searched for it online. That search led to a Facebook post from 12 March 2019. In the footage, an announcer introduces the performer as Vice Admiral Girish Luthra, who then sings a Hindi song. The review also reports finding the video on Luthra’s YouTube page after searching for his name alongside “Western Naval Command” and “Golden Jubilee.” On that evidence, it concludes that the clip showed Luthra, not Sathe, and that it had been recirculated with a misleading caption connecting it to the Kozhikode crash.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Last minutes video of Air India Express flight just before its accident at Kozhikode airport

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video shared as real footage of the Air India Express flight shortly before its accident at Kozhikode airport. FACTLY says the video is not real footage of the aircraft: it is a flight simulation depicting the accident. The review reports that the flight from Dubai slipped on the runway at Kozhikode on 07 August 2020 and fell into a valley; it says nearly 18 people died and many were injured. To assess the video, the review describes examining its appearance and searching for related animated videos. It says the clip looked animated and that search results included animated videos associated with the Kozhikode accident. The decisive provenance it reports is that the posted video was uploaded to YouTube on the day of the accident, and its description called it “a video simulation with real data of Air India Express flight 1344.” The review also notes that “P3D” appears in the title and identifies Prepar3D as flight-simulation software. These details support identifying the clip as a simulation, not last-minute camera footage of the actual flight.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Images showing the current pathetic conditions in flood-hit Bihar

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post presented a collection of images as showing the current conditions in flood-hit Bihar. The review’s conclusion is that the collection was misleading: it found that two images depicted Bihar floods in 2013, while the others were not related to the recent Bihar floods. (“Though Bihar is hit by floods recently, not all images shown in the post belong to recent floods.”; “A couple of images are related to floods in Bihar which occurred in 2013, whereas the rest of the images are no way related to the recent floods in Bihar.”) To investigate, the review says it used Google reverse-image searches and compared the results with material it found elsewhere. It reports that BBC had published the first two images in coverage of the 2013 Bihar floods. For another image, it identified a screenshot from the 2006 HBO miniseries *Tsunami: The Aftermath*, which is set against the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. (“When we ran a reverse image search of both the images on google, we found that these images are related to Bihar floods which occurred in 2013.”; “we found that the image is a screenshot of a scene from a 2006 HBO mini-series called ‘Tsunami: The Aftermath’ directed against the backdrop of Tsunami which occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004.”) The review traced other pictures to unrelated material: one had appeared in a report about Bangladesh floods, and another in a 2017 Nepal article about fundraising for flood victims. It also notes a similar-looking Getty Images photograph from Lahore, Pakistan, taken in 2016, but does not establish that this is the exact image in the post. Its overall finding is therefore that the set combined older Bihar-flood images with unrelated images, rather than documenting current Bihar flooding. (“we came across a news article which published the same image in its report regarding the floods in Bangladesh.”; “The article was published on 19 August 2017.”; “the photo was clicked back in 2016 in Lahore, Pakistan”)

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Video of a hoarding falling on people at Mehdipatnam flyover in Hyderabad

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show a hoarding falling onto people at Mehdipatnam flyover in Hyderabad, Telangana. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the incident in the video as having occurred in Karachi, Pakistan, rather than Hyderabad or elsewhere in India. It reports that Pakistani news agencies covered the accident and that two people were injured. To trace the footage, the review says it ran screenshots through Yandex Reverse Image Search. That search surfaced the same video posted by multiple social-media users, who described the incident as taking place in Karachi. The review then searched relevant keywords and found articles from prominent Pakistani news agencies reporting the incident’s Karachi location. Those reports, as described in the review, also said that Karachi’s Commissioner’s Office directed the removal of billboards in the city. The investigation therefore connects the video to a reported Karachi incident, while the Hyderabad location attached to it in the claim is inconsistent with the evidence described. The excerpt does not identify the news agencies or provide the dates of the accident or the reports.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturDisasters & emergencies

Op marktplaats zoetermeer, een lokale nieuws- en uitwisselingssite voor het Zuid-Hollandse Zoetermeer op Facebook, is op 5 augustus 2020 een bericht met foto geplaatst. Volgens de auteur van de post is er net een ernstig ongeval gebeurd, waar meer dan 11 mensen zijn omgekomen. Ook zou de politie dringend op zoek zijn naar de families van de slachtoffers. Bij de post staat een link waarop je de foto's van het ongeval en een video van de slachtoffers zou kunnen zien.

Publisher’s rating: Opgelet! Het bericht is een klassieke vorm van internetfraude of 'phishing' en dus niet waar. Wanneer je op de link klikt, krijg je een fake loginpagina van Facebook te zien. Vul je gegevens dus zeker niet in. Ook is de foto bijna acht jaar oud, en is er op die dag in of vlakbij Zoetemeer geen ongeluk met 11 doden gebeurd.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Picture showing the struggle of a mother and child during the floods in Bihar

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photograph presented on social media as showing a mother and child during recent floods in Bihar. FACTLY investigated the photograph itself and reports that it was taken in a different place and year: on 25 September 2011, at Pahanga village in Orissa’s Jajpur district. The woman was carrying her injured son through floodwater, so the image did depict a mother and child in flood conditions—but not the Bihar floods claimed in the post. The review describes a reverse-image search on Yandex, which led to a blog post titled “Powerful Photographs Of India In 2011.” That post’s description identified the woman and child and credited the picture to AP Photo. FACTLY then searched Associated Press stock images using relevant keywords and found the same image, with a caption locating it at Pahanga village on 25 September 2011. This provenance supports the conclusion that the photograph was misrepresented as a current Bihar-flood image.

FACTLYDisasters & emergencies

Photo showing the current situation in flood-hit Assam

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photograph of a family on a roof surrounded by floodwater, shared as showing the recent Assam floods. FACTLY reports that its investigation found the image was from flooding in Bangladesh, not Assam: it says the photo appeared in articles about conditions in Bangladesh during floods and riverbank erosion, and concludes it had “nothing to do with the recent Assam floods.” The review identifies the shared image as the subject of its check, rather than relying only on a general comparison of flood photographs. [S1]