Dated plane crash visuals falsely linked to India-Pakistan crisis

Published on May 7, 2025 at 10:59
3 min read
By AFP Thailand

Days before nuclear-armed India and Pakistan exchanged missile and artillery strikes in a major escalation of hostilities, a video showing the aftermath of a May 2020 plane crash surfaced in posts falsely linking it to the current conflict. There have been no reports of either side downing a passenger jet, contrary to the false posts.

"Pakistan army shot down an Indian passenger plane near Pakistan's Karachi airport today, killing everyone," reads the Burmese-language caption of a video shared on Facebook on May 1, 2025.

The video shows clips of crowds watching clouds of dark smoke rise from behind residential buildings.

It surfaced after Pakistan said it had "credible intelligence" that India was planning an imminent military strike and vowed to retaliate, as the already frosty relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours plummeted further following a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 (archived link).

New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the attack in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam, which left 26 people dead. Pakistan rejects the accusations and the two sides have exchanged nightly gunfire since April 24 along the contested region's de facto border.

Despite calls from the international community to step back from the brink of war, the arch-rivals escalated their standoff by exchanging heavy artillery along their contested frontier with dead reported on both sides (archived link).

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on May 7, 2025

The same clips were shared in similar Burmese posts that claim the Pakistani military shot down a passenger jet, but do not say the plane was from India; the posts were viewed more than 9,000 times in total.

There have been no official reports, however, of the Pakistani military shooting down a passenger plane in Karachi.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the first clip in the video led to the same footage in a compilation posted by Britain's Independent newspaper on May 22, 2020 (archived link).

The compilation is embedded in a report about a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight that crashed near Karachi.

AFP reported PIA Flight 8303 was flying from Lahore when it plunged into a neighbourhood in Karachi after making multiple approaches to land at the city's airport (archived link). The crash killed 97 people on board and one girl on the ground.

Investigators said there was no technical issue with the plane, and the government blamed the pilots.

The clip used in the false posts can be seen at the 59-second mark of the compilation.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the footage from the Independent's compilation (right)

Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the second clip in the falsely shared video had previously been uploaded to YouTube by the Guardian on the same day (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the same footage in the Guardian's video (right)

AFP has debunked other false claims stemming from the attack in Kashmir here and here.

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