Several news outlets including India Today, Times Now, CNN News 18 and Mirror Now aired an old video of an Indian Air Force evacuation process from Andhra Pradesh and falsely claimed that it shows visuals of a July 14 rescue operation in Telangana's Mancharial district.
BOOM found that the video is from November 2021 when an Mi-17 chopper of the IAF rescued ten people stuck in the rising waters of Chitravati river in Andhra Pradesh's Ananthapur district.
We reached out to Ashish Moghe, IAF's PRO Wing Commander, who confirmed to BOOM, "The viral video is from November, 2021;" Moghe further clarified that the video is from Andhra Pradesh and not Telangana, as claimed by news channels.
The video shows an IAF helicopter evacuating people from a stranded JCB earthmover, after the vehicle was caught in the midst of a raging river.
On July 14, 2022 the IAF rescued two people who had sought shelter on top of a water tank located at Somanpally hamlet in Telangana's Mancharial district to survive the rising Godavari river. The rescue operation took place after IAF received a request from the Telangana government and sent a Chetak helicopter from its air force station in Hakimpet. The video is being shared in this backdrop.
"Exclusive footage of dramatic rescue"
Times Now tweeted the viral video with the caption, "WATCH - Dramatic rescue operation on camera! Special chopper rescues two people stuck in Godavari river in Telangana."
Click here to view the post.
India Today also aired the video as an exclusive report related to the rescue operation. Fourteen seconds into the bulletin, the anchor can be heard saying, "This is an India Today exclusive, caught on camera. The dramatic rescue on your screens to see," as visuals from the viral video are played.
Other mainstream media outlets such as CNN News 18, Mirror Now also shared the video claiming the same.
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The video is also doing the rounds on Facebook as recent and from Telangana.
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video using keywords "helicopter flood jcb" and found an NDTV news report published on November 20, 2021 carrying similar visuals from a rescue operation that took place in Andhra Pradesh.
The video report showed an Indian Air Force chopper evacuating a person from a stranded JCB earthmover amidst a raging river.
"The rescue was a stunning display of bravery as rain fury unfolds in Andhra Pradesh where 17 people have been reported dead and over 100 are missing after floods," reported NDTV.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search on Twitter related to Andhra Pradesh floods and found a Kalinga TV report published on November 19, 2021.
According to the report, "At least 12 people were killed and 18 others went missing after three buses of Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) were stuck in floods triggered by heavy rains in Kadapa district on Friday."
The report also included an IAF tweet with images and a video related to the rescue operation that happened in Ananthapur district, Andhra Pradesh.
Below is a comparison between the frames of the viral video and a frame from the video uploaded by the IAF.
Old video uploaded on YouTube in November, 2021
Further, we performed a keyword search using words "Kadapa rescue helicopter" on YouTube and found that several users had uploaded the same viral video in 2021 stating that it is from Andhra Pradesh's Kadapa district.
Incident from November, 2021. Not recent: Indian Air Force PRO
BOOM also sent the viral video to IAF's PRO Wing Commander Ashish Moghe, who confirmed that the video shows a rescue operation that took place in Andhra Pradesh's Ananthapur district on November 19, 2021. "This is the same video, taken from a different angle. We have not given any video (to the press) recently. This was on November 19 , 2021," Moghe told BOOM.
Moghe further added, "The viral video shows the helicopter from the rear quarters. However, the video that we posted, shows the helicopter from the front."
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