A screenshot which claims that a pilot was caught urinating in the cockpit of a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 is being shared to insinuate that the report was published in the Pakistani daily, Dawn.
However, we found several red flags – such as misspelt words and formatting errors – in the screenshot, which raises questions regarding the legitimacy of the image that has gone viral on social media.
CLAIM
The screenshot shows that the article was published on 10 June 2020. The headline of the article mentions that ‘Allah’ told the pilot that urine increases efficiency of jets.
The image is viral on Facebook with several users sharing it with the same details.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We ran a keyword search on Google and on Dawn’s website but did not find any such article published by the Pakistan-based newspaper.
While analysing the viral screenshot, we saw several stylistic errors and words being misspelt. For instance, the word ‘pissing’ has been capitalised in the middle of the sentence.
We went through several articles published in Dawn and noticed that none of their headlines end with a full stop, but in the case of the viral screenshot, it does. Further, the word ‘efficiency’ has been misspelt as ‘efficiancy’.
FORMAT OF VIRAL IMAGE IS DIFFERENT
We also found that the format of the article seen in the viral screenshot is different from Dawn’s official format.
In any article published by Dawn, under ‘Today’s Paper’, one can see a long black line with several sections mentioned underneath. However, no such thing can be seen in the viral screenshot.
Further, advertisements appear just above the headline, and thus, there is an ad space. However, no such space can be seen in the viral screenshot.
Regarding sharing options, the icons appear on the right side of the page. But they appear on the left in case of the viral screenshot.
The screenshot does not mention any byline, while Dawn’s articles do have bylines.
Meanwhile, we came across a Dawn article, dated 10 June 2020, in which the publication debunked another screenshot of the PAF F-16 that was misattributed to it.
Evidently, a fake image has been circulating to claim that Dawn published an article on a pilot being caught urinating in the cockpit of PAF F-16.
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