Video shows Bangladesh airport drill, not burning US plane

"Terrible fire on US military aircraft in Cox's Bazar," reads the Bengali-language caption of a Facebook video shared on September 18, 2025, referring to a town on Bangladesh's southeastern coast.

The video appears to show people running on an airport's tarmac while an aeroplane burns in the background. 

The caption goes on to criticise Muhammad Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who has been leading Bangladesh's caretaker government since the August 2024 uprising that ended the 15-year autocratic rule of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina (archived link).

"Profiter Yunus has sold the country to America," the caption says, echoing accusations from Hasina's Awami League that the interim government was appeasing "foreign patrons" and consolidating its "illegitimate power" (archived link).

Image

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on September 21, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

Similar posts surfaced elsewhere on Facebook as Bangladesh and the United States conducted joint military exercises in the port city of Chattogram (archived link).

But there have been no official reports of an American aircraft catching fire during the drills or in nearby Cox's Bazar.

Moreover, a reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to a longer version posted on the verified YouTube channel of Bengali news channel Sylhet TV on February 26 (archived link).

The falsely shared video matches the first 34 seconds of the Sylhet TV report, which is titled "Plane skids off runway, then catches fire; Fire safety drill on a dummy plane at Sylhet Airport".

The airport in Sylhet -- the Osmani International Airport -- is located in the country's northeast.

Image

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the Sylhet TV report (right)

Sadikur Rahman Saki, the owner and editor of Sylhet TV, told AFP the channel filmed the video at Osmani International Airport on February 26.

"It was a firefighting exercise," he said on September 23.

A report about the fire drill from local news media Dhaka Post indicated the burning aircraft was a model passenger plane (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about Bangladesh's political unrest following Hasina's ouster.