A video emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows the “final moment” of the South Korean plane that crashed in the city of Muan on Dec. 29.
But the claim is false. The video in fact has been shared online as early as September, months before the deadly plane crash.
The video was shared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, on Dec. 31, as well as on Weibo. The Weibo post has been taken down.
“179 people on the Korean plane were killed, the worst airplane disaster in South Korea. The last few minutes before the plane exploded,” the caption of the video reads.
The clip appears to have been filmed inside a plane, with oxygen masks falling from above passenger seats. Several passengers are seen holding their mobile phones and filming, and some passengers appear to be chanting.
The video and the claim began to circulate after the Jeju Air flight carrying 181 people crashed in a ball of flames as it was attempting to land in the South Korean city of Muan on Dec. 29, killing all but two of those on board in one of the country’s worst ever air disasters.
But the claim is false.
Old video
A reverse image search found the video had been shared online as early as September, months before the deadly plane crash, as seen here and here.
Russian state media Sputnik’s Arabic edition reported in September that the footage showed the scene of an Air Algerie flight to Istanbul returning an hour after takeoff due to a technical fault, causing panic among the passengers on board. The Air Algerie plane landed safely.
Clues in the clip
A closer examination of the video reveals that the crew members are dressed in blue uniforms, and the seats are also blue, which is not consistent with Jeju Air’s signature white and orange color scheme.
Additionally, passengers can be heard chanting in the video, but the language they are using is not Korean. According to South Korean and Thai authorities, among the 181 passengers aboard the crashed Jeju Air flight, two were Thai nationals, while the rest were Korean.
A Korean-speaking journalist from AFCL also confirmed that the chanting in the video is unrecognizable and was not in the Korean language.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
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