This video does not show recent helicopter crash in Ukraine

Hyderabad: Social media users are sharing a video of a helicopter spiraling and crashing. They are claiming that it shows the recent helicopter crash in Ukraine.

On 18 January, a helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister and two team members crashed in the Kyiv region, killing at least 14 people, including all nine people onboard.

A Facebook page called Viral Posts shared the video and wrote, “Video of the #HelicopterCrash in which 16 persons were killed, including the interior minister of Ukraine and other senior ministry officials, in the town of Brovary west of Kyiv.”

Several others have also shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is at least nine months old and shows a helicopter crash in Rowlett in the US.

On performing a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found a video report published by Fox 4 News on 26 March 2022. The viral video appears at around the 0.53-second mark. According to the video description, the pilot and a passenger died after the helicopter crashed and burst into flames in Rowlett, a city in Texas in the United States.

Daily Mail also reported the crash on 26 March 2022. It said two people were killed after a helicopter suffered a mid-air breakup and plunged to the earth in a fiery crash. The report contains the video and stills from the video.

Finally, we found a tweet by the Rowlett police department from 26 March 2022 confirming the death of two persons in the Rowlett Texas helicopter crash.

It is evident that the video shows a helicopter crash in Rowlett city in the United States. Hence, we conclude that the claim that the video shows a recent helicopter crash in Ukraine is misleading.