Lighthouse Journalism came across a widely shared video on X (formerly Twitter) where the users claimed that the video was from Cairo airport, Salam city, where an aeroplane met with an accident killing 1500 passengers. During the investigation we found that the video is old and not of an aeroplane accident.
Claim:
X user Tanvir Rangrez shared the video with a viral claim on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing this video.
Investigation:
We obtained keyframes from the video and ran a Google reverse image search to get more details about the video.
Through one such Google reverse image search on a keyframe we found a video on YouTube posted three years ago that mentioned that video shows, ‘PIPE EXPLOSION IN ISMAILIA ROAD – CAIRO – JULY 14, 2020’.
We then ran a keyword search on Google and found the video posted on the Facebook page of Identity Magazine on 14th July, 2020.
The caption said: Huge fire breaks out on Cairo-Ismailia desert road due to an oil pipeline explosion. The cars on the scene seem to have been severely affected and 20 fire trucks are on their way to put out the fire. There are no reported casualties yet. Please avoid all roads leading up to the fire scene at this time and stay safe! Video Credit: Mohamed Abdelfattah
We also found the news reports about the same. A report uploaded on Egypt Today on 14th July, 2020 mentioned, ‘Leakage of petroleum pipeline at Ismailia Desert Road led to a sudden explosion, Tuesday causing several injuries. Official sources at the Ministry of Petroleum said that minister Tarek el Molla headed to the explosion site, as an investigation will be open to determine the reasons behind the accident.’
We also found a report on Xinhua Net.
We also checked if there were any recent plane accidents in Egypt. We couldn’t find any news report stating the same.
Conclusion: Video of pipeline explosion at Ismailia Desert Road in Egypt goes viral as recent from a plane accident in Egypt. Viral claim is false.
