This footage shows the crash site of Elon Musk’s prototype SN9 rocket
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on May 20, 2021 at 17:32
- 4 min read
- By Segun OLAKOYENIKAN, AFP Nigeria
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
The video clip was shared in numerous social media posts, including on a Facebook page called Lizzy TV. The account has more than 100,000 followers and is known for promoting the activities of Nigerian separatist Indigenous People of Biafra.
“The world is saved from the Chinese rocket.(BBFG) The rocket finally landed In India ?? ocean hesssssss (sic),” reads the post from May 9, 2021, shared alongside the dramatic footage. “God why didn’t it Land in Aso Rock?”
Aso Rock is the seat of the Nigerian presidency and located in the capital Abuja, one of several sites around the world where people speculated that the out-of-control remains of the Chinese rocket hit.
Nearly 10,000 people have watched the accompanying video and more than 480 people have shared the Facebook post on the pro-Biafran page. The outlawed separatist group is pushing for independence from the Nigerian state.
But the video was already circulating online before the remains of the rocket, which had been launched into space to transport the first module of China's Tianhe space station into orbit several years ago, returned to Earth earlier this month.
According to the US Space Command, the Chinese Long March 5B re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Arabian Peninsula on May 8, 2021. While the US agency claimed it was “unknown if the debris impacted land or water”, AFP reported that a large segment of the rocket disintegrated over the Indian Ocean.
Using digital verification platform InVID WeVerify, AFP Fact Check ran several reverse image searches on keyframes of the video and found previous versions of the clip in an Instagram post from February 2021.
The caption in the post describes the incident as the crash landing of a prototype SpaceX rocket during a test flight conducted in February.
“SpaceX’s prototype Mars rocket crashes in test flight,” reads the post’s caption, which gives credit to a TikTok account called “seanmichel782”.
AFP Fact Check found that the video, as well as a longer version, were indeed published on the same TikTok account on February 3, 2021, a day after AFP reported on the fate of the SpaceX rocket following its test flight.
SpaceX published a video on YouTube showing the scene of the incident, which occurred at its test site along the Texas coast. AFP also documented the incident.
“On Tuesday, February 2, Starship serial number 9 (SN9) completed SpaceX’s second high-altitude flight test of a Starship prototype from our site in Cameron County, Texas,” the caption on the YouTube video reads.
Multiple reviews carried out by AFP show the TikTok footage actually captured the moment the prototype rocket landed, just from a different angle, like this version on Twitter.
Furthermore, the landing position of the SN9 rocket and the ensuing explosion in the TikTok footage also match the AFP video uploaded from February 2021.
At least four SpaceX experimental Starship rockets have ended up in flames since last December.
“These test flights are all about improving our understanding and development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the Moon and travel to Mars and beyond,” the company said.
SpaceX successfully launched 26 missions last year, including its Falcon 9 rocket carrying a record number of satellites on board.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
