A grand event was held at Rajpath, Delhi last week to commemorate India's 73rd Republic Day, featuring republic day parade, six marching contingents of the Indian Army, cultural performances, tableaux, and a grand flypast of 75 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) presenting number of formations as a part of "Azadi Ka Mahotsav". Following the event, a video of a cameraman in a still position on a flying plane is going viral claiming that the cameraman is shooting air shows mid-air during the Republic Day celebrations held recently.
In the viral video, two cameramen in a stationed position are seen shooting an air show and giving instructions to the aviator. While sharing this video, a Twitter user wrote a caption that reads, "You have seen courage of our soldiers shooting enemies....Now see courage of cameramen shooting air shows during RD celebrations. Very close-up shots."
Another Facebook user wrote a caption that reads, "You have seen courage of shooting soldiers. Now see courage of shooting cameramen. Our cameramen shooting air shows during RD celebrations. Very close-up shots."
It is being widely shared on social media with the viral claim. Click here, here, here and here to read.
Claim:
A video of a cameraperson shooting in mid-air has gone viral, with a claim that he was recording jet planes on the occasion of Republic Day.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian Fact Check team verified the claim and found it to be false. The viral video is from Saudi Arabia.
We extracted different keyframes of the shared video using the InVid tool and ran a google reverse image search. We found the old video available on Facebook from September 2020. It establishes that the video is not from the recently held Republic Day parade. The caption of the video reads, "Celebrations for #SaudiNationalDay Air Shows in different parts of #SaudiArabia." Also, in this extended version of the viral video, we noticed the Saudi Arab national flag waving in the air by jets and Saudi Arabia's national emblem can also be spotted on the jets. From 0.25 seconds to 1:11 seconds of timestamp, one can see the viral footage.
On searching more with the help of the Invid tool, we found a similar video on a verified Twitter handle of Saudi Arabia Journalist Enad al-Otaibi. The video was shared on 22 September 2020 with an Arabic caption which when translated into English, reads, "Eye of the Falcon" documents "The Falcons". ##Saudi 90th NationalDay #Himma_until_the_top #National_Day."
Taking a clue from this tweet, we did an open keyword search and found a similar video in a video report of Times Of India, News18 and Asia Net dated September 2020. The caption of the video reads, "The Royal Saudi Air Force recently organized a photoshoot of its fighter airplanes. But what's even more interesting is that there are also a few BTS videos. Saudi journalist Enad al-Otaibi Tweeted a couple of amazing behind-the-scenes videos showing well-known Saudi aviation photographer Ahmed Hader directing and photographing fighter jets. This photographer sits perilously on the ramp of a military plane to capture head-on pics of fighter jets in formation. The jets did air-show rehearsals to prepare for the 90th National Day of Saudi Arabia."
It is evident from our investigation that an old video of Saudi Arabia 90th National Day air-show rehearsal is falsely shared as a recent air show which took place on the occasion of 73rd Republic day. The viral video was shot in September 2020 and it has nothing do to with the recent Republic day celebrations. Hence, the viral claim is false.
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Also Read: Did TMC Leader Hoist Only Party Flag on Republic Day? Video Viral With False Claim