Tag Archives: helicopter

An image is being shared online with the false claim it shows the wreckage of the helicopter carrying Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi. 

The caption on a post sharing the photo of a damaged helicopter on Instagram says: “‎The wreckage of Iranian President Raisi’s helicopter has been found.”

However, the image is actually of a Eurocopter helicopter crash in Texas, United States, in January 2024.

President Raisi, along with seven other people including Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, died in a helicopter crash in the north of Iran on Sunday 19 May.

Iranian state media reported that the accident occurred as a result of fog and rain.

The image being incorrectly attributed to the crash is actually from an incident near Spofford in southern Texas…

Pictures claiming to show the aftermath of the helicopter crash that killed the president of Iran has been widely shared online. 

Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in a mountainous region of north-west Iran, alongside foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Sunday 19 May.

The pictures being shared online show what appears to be the wreckage of an aircraft across a hillside. A number of people can be seen gathered around the debris, including a man looking at the camera wearing a face mask and a red and white jacket.

They also show other people wearing the same distinctive uniform, and what appears to be part of a plane marked with the number 1136 and the Iranian flag. 

But these pictures aren’t from Sunday’s crash in north-west…

Multiple social media posts feature a video claiming to show a man using a shoulder-launched ground-to-air missile to shoot down an Israeli helicopter during the recent conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip. 

The clip, which has been shared hundreds of times across Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) is not of a real event. It has been taken from a military simulation game called Arma 3. 

A higher-quality version of the sequence showing the helicopter being downed was uploaded to YouTube in February 2023, months before the recent hostilities began. 

The description attached to the YouTube video states: “It’s Just a Military Simulation. Not Real life.”

Scenes from Arma 3 have previously been used in misleading claims linked to global conflicts. We’ve written