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| - Fact Check: Footage of Taliban chopper crash shared as Balochistan mishap that killed Pak Lt General
An AFWA investigation revealed that this footage predates the chopper crash in Balochistan. It was viral before, purportedly from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan.
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India Today Fact Check
This video predates the Balochistan incident and reportedly shows a Taliban pilot crashing a chopper in Afghanistan's Kandahar province in January, 2022.
Six Pakistani military personnel, including a Lieutenant-General, died in a helicopter crash in Balochistan on August 1. The crew was conducting relief operations in the flood-hit province when their chopper crashed due to bad weather.
Now, several people are sharing air mishap footage claiming to show how Lieutenant-General Sarfraz Ali and his men lost their lives.
The video shows a chopper wobbling over a flooded road full of vehicles before crashing at a distance. Civilians can be seen shooting the incident on their phones. The post claimed the video was one such piece of footage.
An AFWA investigation revealed that this footage predates the chopper crash in Balochistan. It was viral before, purportedly from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan.
AFWA PROBE
While going through the comments on one such post, we found one that said "Wrong video," along with a YouTube link to support the claim.
Uploaded on January 5, 2022, it was the same video. "Crazy Flight helicopter crash funny Taliban helicopter flight video," the video was titled.
This confirmed that the viral video is old and unrelated to the recent Balochistan air crash.
A reverse search of the video's keyframes on Yandex led us to the YouTube channel of Afghanistan-based Aamaj News. The video was uploaded on January 5.
Yandex also led us to Russian and Ukrainian news articles that used Aamaj News screenshots to report that Taliban pilots crashed an American military class MD 530F helicopter in Kandahar. The chopper was reportedly engaged in flood rescue operations in the region.
The same claim was made on Reddit as well.
Agence France-Presse too reported on the viral video, citing Zee News and Mojo TV having used the clip while reporting the incident in January.
AFWA in the past has debunked disinformation pertaining to Balochistan. Some of these reports can be read here and here and here.
It is thus clear that the viral video is unrelated to the recent helicopter clash in Pakistan that killed six, including a top commander.
Also Read: | Fact Check: This almost decade-old video does not show world's largest hydroelectric dam bursting during flood
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