Reports on social media claim that they are proving that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is involved in a secret “chemtrails” program – a conspiracy theory that supporters believe government figures secretly drop toxic chemicals from planes to kill civilians impair.
The images show Merkel and others standing between ballast barrels while touring an A350-900 aircraft during the ILA Berlin Air Show in 2014.
The images have captions like “They spray us” and “Chemtrails, do you still think it’s BS?” which suggests that these images are a proof of the conspiracy theory: here and here.
As the Reuters Fact Check team previously explained here, the conspiracy theory of the “chemtrails” long debunk claims that “governments or other parties are working on a secret program to add toxic chemicals from the plane to the atmosphere on ‘ a way that visible plumes in the air ”(here).
The photos in question show the chancellor and others, including then Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier and the then Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications, Lutfi Elvan, during the ceremony opened by the ISA Berlin Air Show in Selchow near Schoenefeld south of Berlin. May 20, 2014. The German government shared the images here on its official website.
Reuters images taken of Merkel’s day can be found here, here and here.
The containers shown in the aircraft are not full of toxic chemicals, as the chemtrails posts suggest, but rather ballast barrels which, as reported by Wired here, are tanks filled with water used to carry the weight of cargo or passengers to te boots.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and NASA explained here that ‘condensation paths’ or ‘contrails’ consist mainly of water in the form of ice particles and ‘pose no health risks to humans’. Contrails, however, can contribute to human climate change. Further reading on this is available here.
VERDICT
Untrue. These images of Angela Merkel touring an Airbus A350-900 aircraft during the ILA Berlin Air Show in 2014 are not evidence of the conspiracy theory “chemtrails” for which there is no legal evidence.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.