This Brazilian Air Force video actually shows the refuelling of A-4 fighter jets

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 6, 2020 at 06:50
2 min read
By AFP India

A video has been shared tens of thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter, alongside a claim that it shows Rafale fighter jets being refuelled mid-air. The posts circulated online hours after India announced it received five of the jets from France in July 2020 to strengthen its air force. The claim, however, is misleading; this Brazilian Air Force video in fact shows the aerial refuelling of A-4 Skyhawk fighter jets in 2018.

The 11-second video was published here on Facebook on July 29, 2020. It has been viewed more than 67,000 times.

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post

The video caption reads: “And that is how the refuelling is done mid-air #ThankYouPmModiForRafale #RafaleJets”.

The claim circulated online just hours after India, on July 29, 2020, received the first five of a batch of French Rafale fighter jets purchased in a controversial multibillion-dollar deal.

The deal, estimated to be worth $9.4 billion, has been overshadowed by corruption allegations levelled by the opposition Congress party although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejected the claims, according to this AFP report.

The video has been viewed more than 100,000 times after it was also shared alongside a similar claim here, here, here and here on Facebook; and here, here, here and here on Twitter.

However, the claim is misleading.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes extracted with InVID-WeVerify, a digital verification tool, found the same video published here on the Twitter account of the Brazilian Air Force on September 28, 2018.

Interoperabilidade! Caça F-5 da Força Aérea Brasileira realiza reabastecimento em voo em caça A-4 da Marinha do Brasil! ↗?? @marmilbr
? Maj Gustavo Cury.#1GDA #AviaçãodeCaça #FAB #Dimensão22 #Defender #ForçasArmadas #Brasil pic.twitter.com/AzDNIQvmTR
— Força Aérea Brasileira ?? (@fab_oficial) September 28, 2018

The Portuguese tweet translates to English as: “Interoperability! The F-5 fighter of the Brazilian Air Force carries out in-flight refueling on an A-4 fighter jet of the Brazilian Navy!”

The video is credited to the Brazilian Navy. According to its website here, the navy’s air arm owns two versions of the A-4 Skyhawk aircraft, AF-1 and AF-1A.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the Brazilian Air Force video (R):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the Brazilian Air Force video (R)

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