Hoax 'Hajj plane crash' claims spread online
- Published on June 9, 2025 at 11:40
- 3 min read
- By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, Gemma CAHYA, AFP Thailand, AFP Indonesia
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"Heartbreaking to hear the news of a plane carrying pilgrims from Mauritania crashing off the coast of the Red Sea while travelling to the holy site. Reports say more than 200 pilgrims died on board," reads a Thai-language Facebook post on May 28, 2025.
It includes a minute-long shaky video of a dark plane cabin with audio of prayers from distressed passengers.
"Mauritanian hajj pilgrims plane crash on the shores of the Red Sea, on the way to the holy city of Mecca, more than 210 Hajj pilgrims were martyred in the plane crash," reads another post on Instagram on the same day, written in Indonesian and sharing an image of a destroyed aircraft.
Similar posts also appeared elsewhere on Facebook and spread in English and Hindi as more than 1.5 million pilgrims joined Islam's most important rite (archived link).
But Mauritania Airlines rejected claims of an aviation disaster in a statement posted on Facebook on May 27, 2025 (archived link).
"Some foreign social media pages circulated malicious rumours about the crash of a plane carrying Mauritanian pilgrims off the Red Sea, which is baseless news," it reads in part.
It adds all Mauritanian pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia arrived safely.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the circulating video found it earlier posted on Instagram on October 29, 2018.
AFP previously debunked posts that have misused the clip.
David Ditama -- the owner of the Instagram account -- wrote that he had uploaded the footage after the crash of Lion Air flight JT 610 on the day because he wanted to share his traumatic experience from a year earlier (archived link).
He told AFP the video was taken on December 11, 2017 during Lion Air flight JT 353 from Padang, in West Sumatra province, to Jakarta. The flight experienced heavy turbulence and engine shutdowns, but landed safely.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a former spokesperson for Indonesia's disaster agency, said on X on the same day that the clip shows turbulence on flight JT 353 (archived link).
"All passengers were safe," the post says.
Meanwhile, the image of a destroyed aircraft also shows visual errors that indicate it has been created using AI.
These include the uneven size of the passenger windows and people standing near the aircraft appear to be distorted, limbless and headless.
Despite the rapid progress of generative AI, errors still appear in AI-generated content. These flaws are often the clearest signs of a fabricated image.
AFP has previously debunked another post falsely claiming a Mauritanian plane carrying Muslim pilgrims had crashed.
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