An image of an Indian Air Force (IAF) transport helicopter which crashed after hitting an iron girder near Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath temple in 2018 is being shared on Twitter with the claim that the helicopter crashed recently in Ladakh.
CLAIM
Mubasher Lucman, a Pakistan-based journalist, who hosts program Khara Sach, shared the image with the caption: “Indians please check is this your M 17 crashed in Laddakh? We will keep you posted of any developments. (sic)”
The tweet had garnered 1,500 retweets and over 6,500 likes at the time of publishing the article.
The image was shared on Twitter by a handle with username Irmak Idoya with the claim that it is a recent crash in Ladakh.
The Quint’s WebQoof has fact-checked several claims made by this Twitter handle in the past.
Several social media users have shared the image on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On reverse searching the image on Google, we found a report by The Times of India wherein similar visuals can be seen. The article is titled: “IAF helicopter collides with iron girder, catches fire; one person killed.”
The incident was reported by several media houses including NDTV, Hindustan Times among others.
NDTV had also carried a bulletin then and we compared the viral image with the visuals on the channel. Not only the positioning of the helicopter, the background, but also the man sitting on it is wearing the same clothes as seen in the 2018 visuals.
In April 2018, IAF’s Russian-origin transport helicopter Mi-17 V5 crashed after hitting an iron girder while attempting to land at a helipad located near Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath temple, the NDTV report mentioned.
“Four people including the IAF pilot suffered injuries; they are out of danger,” rescuers had said then.
Evidently, old image from a crash that took place in Uttarakhand has resurfaced with the false claim that it took place in Ladakh recently.
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