Flight accident footage shows video game simulation, not crashed F-35

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 22, 2023 at 17:56
2 min read
By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA

A stealth jet that disappeared after the pilot ejected from the craft prompted calls by the US military to help. But a video claimed to show the F-35 crashing and bursting into flames is unrelated to the plane, which left a debris field authorities found in South Carolina; it is a creation made using a combat simulation computer game, according to the original poster.

"BREAKING: amateur video captures the missing F 35 crashing in South Carolina," says the caption on a September 20, 2023 TikTok post viewed more than 14,000 times.

Another post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, adds: "F35 jet crash caught by hikers."

Screenshot from TikTok taken September 21, 2023

Screenshot from X, formerly known as Twitter, taken September 21, 2023

Similar claims spread across platforms including Facebook and Telegram in the days after the US military found debris in the state of South Carolina from the lost F-35, which disappeared after the pilot ejected from the craft in what was described as a mishap.

The $80 million stealth jet was an F-35B, a variation operated by the US Marines that has short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities, as well as features that make it more difficult for traditional radar to detect.

But the supposed accident footage is not authentic.

The original poster, who goes by "iceman_fox1" and whose TikTok handle overlays the clip, captioned the video on YouTube and other platforms with text saying the clip was "filmed with Digital Combat Simulator" (archived here, here and here).

Digital Combat Simulator, also called DCS, is a free-to-play combat computer game from Eagle Dynamics that lets users simulate the experience of operating military vehicles (archived here).

AFP has previously debunked other clips from the game that were misrepresented online by users claiming they showed fighter jets.

Reached by AFP via Facebook Messenger, the "iceman_fox1" account confirmed the alleged F-35 footage came from the video game.

"It says in the description, filmed with digital combat simulator," they wrote. "All of the videos are digitally generated."

The user's TikTok bio says it makes "Realistic DCS videos."

AFP contacted the US Marines for additional comment, but no response was immediately forthcoming.

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