HYDERABAD: On January 9, 2021, a Sriwijaya Air plane crashed in Indonesia with 62 people on board. After this incident, an image of a crying baby in a life jacket was shared by many on Facebook. Users claim that it showed a baby being rescued after the crash.
FACT CHECK:
NewsMeter found that the viral image is linked to a boat disaster near Indonesia's Selayar Island in July 2018. Therefore, the claim is false.
We conducted a reverse image search and found a news article from 2018 by an Indonesian news website, `Lintas Parlemen' with the headline that upon translation reads, "Alhamdulillah! One baby found safe a day after MV Lestari Maju sank in the sea".
Another Indonesian website Mongabay's from 2018 reads: "A 3-year-old toddler managed to survive thanks to his mother's embrace. In the KM Lestari Maju accident, an unidentified toddler was also found. Photo: Special / Mongabay Indonesia."
We also found the photo in a tweet shared by Indonesia's ex-Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. Upon translation it reads: "There are many social media posts that claim to show an image of a baby who survived the flight JT-610 plane crash. This photo in fact shows a baby who was rescued from KM Lestari Maju that sunk into Selayar waters, on Tuesday, 3 July 2018. So this information is a hoax. Please don't spread hoaxes."
Evidently, an old image was used to falsely claim that the baby was rescued after Sriwijaya Air plane crashed in Indonesia.