Fact Check: IANS Photo Of MiG-29K Crash That Happened In Goa Is Old & Is From Peru

Indo-Asian News Service or IANS, a well-known Newsagency on 16th November tweeted a picture of an aircraft crash on their official twitter page stating that the photo is of a particular Indian Navy’s aircraft that had crashed near Dabolim International Airport of Goa on Saturday, 16th November.

The caption along with the tweet read – “#भारतीयनौसेना का एक विमान #डाबोलिम अंतर्राष्ट्रीय हवाईअड्डा के निकट दुर्घटनाग्रस्त हो गया। एक अधिकारी ने बताया कि हालांकि विमान में सवार दो पायलट सुरक्षित बाहर निकल आए। Photo: IANS”

Translation – “An aircraft of Indian Navy crashed near Dabolim International Airport. An officer said that two pilots came out alive safely. Photo: IANS”

The photo was later taken down by the IANS from their official twitter page, which they later corrected. But the archived version can be seen online.

The original photo:

A #MiG-29K trainer aircraft of the #IndianNavy crashed a short distance from the #Dabolim international airport on Saturday after it suffered an engine fire, officials said.

Photo: Twitter pic.twitter.com/9qT3temANw

— IANS Tweets (@ians_india) November 16, 2019

Fact Check

The news is totally true. A trainer aircraft of Indian Navy, MiG-29K had to suffer an engine fire on November 16th and it crashed near Goa’s Dabolim airport while on a training mission. Another popular news agency ANI covered the same incident by putting pictures of the accident from the ground.

A MiG-29K fighter aircraft crashed in Goa soon after it took off for a training mission, earlier today. Both the pilots managed to eject safely. The aircraft involved in the crash was a trainer version of the fighter jet. pic.twitter.com/nUdsyWx1qs

— ANI (@ANI) November 16, 2019

#UPDATE Navy Spokesperson Commander Vivek Madhwal: The MiG-29K trainer aircraft suffered an engine fire. The pilots Captain M Sheokhand and Lt Commander Deepak Yadav ejected safely. https://t.co/ArPwXBw8Kk

— ANI (@ANI) November 16, 2019

But what was false in the IANS report was the pictures used by them. On performing a google reverse search we came across the same photo, posted by a Peruvian news organisation, DiarioUNO and Peru.com on August 2015.

According to their reporting, the accident of plane crash took place in the Señor del Ampa sector, in Las Lomas, in José Carlos Mariátegui área, located somewhere near Peru.

So, we get to know that though the information put by IANS is correct, the picture used by them, which they later deleted, is from 2015.

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