Fact test: old photos of air crashes related to a plane crash in Indonesia

On January 9, an Indonesian plane carrying 62 passengers crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta airport. Human remains and aircraft wreckage were recovered from the sea and officials claim that rescue workers also located the black boxes of the Boeing 737-500.

Well, a post distributed on social media has a set of four photos, apparently from first aid operations in the aftermath of the accident. The report also provides general information about the accident.

The first photo shows a plane floating in water, while the second is apparently of sailors pulling debris out of the water. The other two photos show rescuers on car rafts pulling people out of the water. The report gives the impression that the pictures were clicked after the recent plane crash in Indonesia.

India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that only one of the four photos is related to the recent plane crash in Indonesia. The other photos are old and have different accidents.

The message is viral on Facebook. The archived versions can be seen here and here. Let’s now locate the viral photos.

FIRST IMAGE

Using the reverse search we found this photo of a floating plane in very credible news reports. The photo was taken in September 2018 when an Air Niugini Boeing 737-800 with 47 passengers plunged into the water near Chuuk Island in Micronesia.

A According to ‘New York Post’, one passenger died in the accident.

SECOND IMAGE

This picture is in a “Reuters” news release more than a decade back. According to the caption, Brazilian naval personnel are seen collecting waste from Air France flight AF447 in the Atlantic Ocean on June 8, 2009.

The airbus crashed on June 1, 2009 on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people were killed in the crash.

THIRD IMAGE

AFWA has this picture in a reported by “ABC News” published on January 14, 2019. According to the caption, the photo was taken in October 2018 when frogmen from the Indonesian navy emerged from the waters during a search for victims of a crashed Lion Air plane in Tanjung Karawang. The plane crash took the lives of 189 people.

FOURTH IMAGE

This is the only photo in the viral post taken after the recent plane crash in Indonesia. As per news reports, is the photo of Indonesian navy divers taking out part of the plane that crashed into the Java Sea on January 9.

AFWA also found that the long caption of the viral mail copied from a BBC report.

It can therefore be concluded that three of the four photos in the viral post have nothing to do with the Indonesian plane crash and that it is related to other accidents. But, similar footage can be seen in this “Gulf News” photo gallery about the Indonesian plane crash.