Footage shows 2016 military exercise, not Iranian fire on US ship

"JUST IN: Iran releases first footage that shows Two Iranian missiles hits multiple U.S. military ship or Frigates near Jask Island. A first DIRECT STRIKE ON U.S. FORCES," said a now-removed May 4, 2026 post sharing the video on X.

Similar posts appeared across X and other platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, spreading in multiple languages.

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Screenshot from X taken May 4, 2026

The posts followed a report by Iran's Fars news agency that Iranian forces had struck a US Navy warship in the Strait of Hormuz -- a claim quickly denied by the US military -- after President Donald Trump said American forces would begin escorting ships through the pivotal waterway.

Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, told journalists the country's forces destroyed six Iranian boats and shot down missiles and drones fired at US Navy and commercial vessels by Tehran's troops.

Negotiations between Washington and Tehran have been deadlocked since a ceasefire in the US-Israeli war against Iran took effect April 8, with Tehran's stranglehold on the strait a main point of contention.

But the video circulating on social media is unrelated to the war in the Middle East.

Reverse image searches surfaced the same footage in reports from CNN, Popular Mechanics and other sources documenting a 2016 military exercise in which the United States and its allies took out a retired frigate in the Pacific Ocean (archived here and here).

The footage originated with the Pentagon's Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) website, where it is dated July 14, 2016 and described as showing an international maritime exercise called Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC (archived here).

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Screenshot of footage from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service taken May 4, 2026

"Aerial video of the sinking exercise (SINKEX) of the decommissioned USS Thach (FFG 43) during Rim of the Pacific 2016," the site's description says. "Participants in the exercise include U.S., Canada, Australia, and the Republic of Korea."

The ship was decommissioned in 2013, according to the US Navy.

A separate DVIDS article said the USS Thach was sunk in deep waters north of Kauai, Hawaii by fire from ships and aircraft (archived here). The Navy said the vessel was cleaned ahead of the sinking to remove environmentally harmful material, and the area surveyed to ensure no damage to human and marine mammals.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the war in the Middle East here, including claims that misrepresented similar footage from a 2022 sinking exercise.