Hours after it was confirmed that Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others died in an unfortunate helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu, videos have started doing the rounds claiming the final moments of the ill-fated IAF aircraft. Two such videos showing chopper crashes have appeared on social media.
Along with several social media users, Times Now Marathi tweeted such a video, saying that it is a video from the helicopter crash.
The video showed a Helicopter high in the air catching fire, and then crashing to the ground. While the chopper free falls in the air, several objects, which can be passengers, baggage, or broken parts of the aircraft, are seen separating from the burning chopper and falling to the ground. This footage directly questions the current theory of today’s crash, which said the helicopter hit the ground due to bad weather, as in the video, the video had already caught fire high in the air.
That is because, the video is old, and the chopper in it was shot down by a missile. The incident is from Syria and it happened almost two years ago. The same video can be seen on YouTube posted in February 2020, which says that it is the video of a Mi-17 helicopter shot down in Syria. The video was originally posted on Facebook by anti-government activists, and they were heard shouting Allah Hu Akbar while filming the crash.
According to reports, it was a Russian military transport helicopter, which was shot down near Aleppo in the Idlib province in Syria. It was targeted using MANPADS, a shoulder-fired surface to air missile, by a Turkey-backed rebel group called National Front for Liberation. Three crew members and two officers on board had died in the terror attack, which was one of the worst attacks on Russian forces in Syria.
A second video is also being shared on social media claiming to be from today. In this video, a video is seen crash landing on the ground. However, no fire is seen on the aircraft, while the chopper that crashed today had caught fire and the victims were burnt to death.
The other video is also not from today’s crash where General Rawat and others died, as being claimed by many. It shows an Indian Air Force Mi-17 Helicopter crash landing in Arunachal Pradesh last month.
The incident happened on 18th November 2021 in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh, and fortunately there were no casualties in this accident. Two pilots and three crew members onboard the helicopter were safe with minor injuries.
Therefore, both the videos are not from today’s accident, and they are old. While one is almost 2 years old and is from Syria, the other one is three weeks old and is from Arunachal Pradesh in India.
With inputs from OpIndia
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)