Photo shows female pilot from Malaysia, not the Philippines

"The very first Muslim woman pilot from the Maranao tribe, from Marawi City -- Captain Sofia Sani, the first female pilot to reach the rank of captain at Firefly Airlines. Masha Allah!" reads the Tagalog-language caption alongside the photo published on Facebook on March 26.

The post has been shared more than 1,500 times.

It was published on a Facebook page with more than one hundred thousand followers dedicated to Marawi City, the principal Islamic city in the mainly Catholic Philippines.

The Maranao are Filipino Muslims known for their metal crafts, architecture and tapestry.

They mostly work as traders in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

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Screenshot of the false post taken on April 5, 2023

The photo was shared more than 3,000 times in other Facebook posts here, here, here alongside a similar false claim.

"Masha Allah, proud Maranao here!" commented one social media user who appeared to believe the claim.

"Congratulations, keep flying!" another wrote.

However, captain Sofia Sani is from Malaysia, not the Philippines.

A reverse image search on Google found the photo was originally published in the April 2015 issue of "Fireflyz", the in-flight magazine of Firefly Airlines, a Malaysia-based low-cost carrier.

The feature on Sofia was titled "Pilot, Captain and Lady: An Interview with Captain Sofia Sani".

The article goes on to say she was Firefly Airlines' first female captain and that she was born and raised in Malaysia.

It also says that Sofia "has six siblings and a Chinese father and a Malay mother".

A subsequent search on Firefly Airlines' official Facebook page shows she was appointed captain in June 2013.

Sofia's family told AFP on April 10: "She's not from the Philippines. She is a Malaysian."

A representative for the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos said that whilst Sani is a popular surname among the Maranao, they were not aware of a "female Maranao pilot".