FACT CHECK… Did viral video show how plane carrying Nigeria’s late COAS, others crash?

Claim: Viral video shows how the plane carrying Nigeria’s late Chief of Army staff crashed

The last 48 hours after the crash has seen videos of aircraft crashes shared claiming to be the one that killed Ibrahim Attahiru, the late chief of Army Staff, and 10 other military officials. One of such videos had earlier been fact-checked by Ripples Nigeria.

Verification: Subsequently, in a similar medium, another viral video was received by Ripples Nigeria via WhatsApp showing how the military aircraft moved from the runways and suddenly collapsed behind the airport shuttle.

With InVid video verification, the video was broken down into frames, and a google image search showed several blogs uploading only the last frame of the video showing the explosion behind the airport shuttle.

Read also: FACT CHECK… Was there any survivor from plane crash that killed Attahiru, others?

The full video showing the scene of the crash was traced to the Sahara TV channel uploaded on Friday, May 21, 2021 — the day of the crash. News reports confirmed that the crash happened somewhere near the Kaduna International Airport which clearly justifies why the airport shuttle was shown in the video.

However, it was noticed that the aircraft shown in the video was a military fighter jet F-7 that cannot carry more than two people at a go and it comes with an ejector seat that can be activated before a crash. The F-7 Jet is also expected to maneuver along a 360 degree.

Ripples Nigeria found similar videos of Nigeria airforce officials training in a fighter jet and shows how they maneuver.

Conclusion: The video was doctored, it was a compilation of two videos; the beginning of the video shows a fighter jet — that can only accommodate a maximum of two people — maneuvering the airways. The second part of the video showing a distant explosion behind the Airport shuttle is a part of the video uploaded by some newspapers to show the scene of the actual crash.

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