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| - Fact Check: This man is a defence journalist, not the pilot who carried hundreds of Afghan evacuees
An image of a man is circulating on social media with the claim that he was the pilot of the aircraft that rescued hundreds of evacuees from Afghanistan. India Today's AFWA has found the claim along with the image to be misleading.
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India Today Fact Check
The man in the picture is Marcus Weisgerber, the global business editor of US defence and security news website Defence One. There was no Marcus Weisgerber among the rescue crew that flew over 800 Afghans out of Kabul.
Within a week of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, thousands of people, including terrified Afghan citizens, have been evacuated from the country by the United States and other nations.
On August 15, a heart-wrenching photo went viral on social media showing hundreds of evacuees crammed on the floor of a US Air Force C-17 aircraft from Kabul to Qatar.
Now, an image of a man is circulating on social media with the claim that he was the pilot of the aircraft that rescued hundreds of evacuees from Afghanistan. “US Pilot Marcus Weisgerber.......who saved 760 afghans in one trip. Hat off,” reads the caption of one such post.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim along with the image to be misleading. The man in the picture is indeed Marcus Weisgerber, but he is a US defence and security journalist and not a pilot.
AFWA probe
We did a reverse search of the viral picture and found that it was uploaded on Facebook in January 2013 by a user named Marcus Weisgerber.
The account has multiple images of the same man. However, though the account says Weisgerber lives in Washington DC, there was not much information about his profession.
On further search, we found the Twitter handle of the same person. According to his Twitter bio, Weisgerber is the global business editor at Defence One, a US-based news portal that primarily covers defence news.
The author page of Weisgerber on the Defence One website can be seen below.
On August 17, 2021, Weisgerber had also tweeted an image of evacuees packed inside a US aircraft. He, along with another journalist, Tara Copp, had reported about the evacuation mission for Defence One.
JUST IN: "The Crew made the decision to go" — Inside RCH 871, which saved 640 from the Taliban ... from @TaraCopp and me https://t.co/r4YvGqJZ4b pic.twitter.com/CI1mAmqjHT— Marcus Weisgerber (@MarcusReports) August 16, 2021
Also, according to reports, the image was first published by Defence One.
The heroic crew
On August 20, CNN did an exclusive interview with the crew members of the C-17.
A photo of a military aircraft packed with evacuees flying out of Afghanistan went viral. There were 823 evacuees on board, the crew told CNN.https://t.co/0Az8NNBXVh pic.twitter.com/DhI8FQKES0— New Day (@NewDay) August 20, 2021
According to a report from this interview, the crew members include Lieutenant Colonel and C-17 commander Eric Kut who authorised the mission, Technical Sergeant Justin Triola, Airman First Class Nicolas Baron, Captain Cory Jackson, First Lieutenant Mark Lawson, Staff Sergeant Derek Laurent and Senior Airman Richard Johnson.
While it was previously believed that the plane carried 640 people, the crew in its interview with CNN clarified that they flew with 823 people, including men, women and children, from Kabul to Qatar.
There was nobody by the name Marcus Weisgerber on the crew list. It is, therefore, clear that the man in the viral picture is a US-based defence journalist and not a C-17 pilot.
READ: Fact Check: Old video from Syria shared as Taliban opening fire in Afghanistan
ALSO READ: Fact Check: Video from Iran shared as Afghan women protesting against Taliban in Kabul
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