A video showing a man lying on the turbine engine of an aircraft as it flies is viral on social media - netizens are misleadingly linking it to the recent reports and visuals of Afghans clinging on to the vehicles on the taxiway of Kabul airport in a bid to flee the Taliban reign.
In videos circulating on social media, thousands of Afghans could be seen thronging the taxiways of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 15 and 16 in a desperate attempt to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban militia's takeover. At least five people died as the chaos at the airport increased, reported Reuters. Unverified visuals of Afghans clinging to the side of a US military plane in the airport on August 16 as it moved through the crowd were viral on social media. A local news agency Asvaka also reported that some people who had clung to the outside of a plane plunged to their deaths after it took off.
In this backdrop, a video showing a man lying on the turbine engine of an aircraft, as it is in motion ,is viral. The video has been captioned on Facebook as, "Citizens of Afghanistan scared of TB (Taliban) occupation hugging deaths and riding on the wings of the Airplane."
Click here to see the post.
Also Read: Old Street Play Video Revived As Taliban Take Over Afghanistan
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News 18 Bangla on Thursday carried the same viral video in a news bulletin and claimed that the visuals show a desperate attempt by an Afghan clinging on to turbine engines of an aircraft to escape.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on one of the keyframes and found the same video tweeted on August 24, 2020; it thus establishes that the video has been doing the rounds much before the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Additionally, we were able to ascertain the video is a work of digital creation as the man seen positioned on the turbine engine remains static as opposed to the high wind and air pressure that normally exists in the same height.
Upon observing closely, we noticed a TikTok user id stamp named "@huyquanhoa" on the top left corner of the video. Below is a screen-to-screen comparison between the viral video and the video from August 2020.
Comparison Between Viral Video And Video From 2020
Taking cue from the name "huyquanhoa", we searched on YouTube and found the video on a channel named "Quần Hoa TV" uploaded on December 17, 2020.
The video includes the man doing different activities such as sitting, lying, working on a desktop and cooking on the turbine engine of a flying aircraft.
The description section of the YouTube video led us to the Facebook profile of the video creator named Huy Xuân Mai. We found the video uploaded on August 17, 2020 on Facebook.
According to the YouTube description of the channel, "Channel specialising in interesting Vlog videos between daily life and many interesting things from Photoshop. This is my official channel, no sub channels."
Description Section of Quần Hoa TV
(Original Text in Vietnamese: Kênh chuyên video Vlog thú vị giữa cuộc sống hằng ngày và nhiều điều thú vị từ Photoshop Đây là kênh chính thức của mình không có kênh phụ)
Huy Xuân Mai's Facebook bio section includes several Vietnamese news articles where he was written about for his exceptional photoshop skills.
Also Read: Video Of Ashraf Ghani Boarding A Plane Is Not After Taliban Takeover