Malawi’s Vice President and nine other passengers on board on a military aircraft were killed after the plane crashed as the country’s President Lazarus Chakwera announced Tuesday. The Plane went missing after it failed to land at the Mzuzu International Airport while the wreckage of the plane has been found in hillside in the Chikangawa forest, a mountainous area. In its aftermath, an image showing the remains of a plane is making rounds on social media platform X(formerly Twitter). Users are sharing this image and linking it with the news of Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima’s plane crash.

Sharing this image on X, an account with username @MrRightkewrote: ”Another donated American aircraft has killed Malawi Vice President and 9 others. It started with Ogolla, went to Iran president and now Saulos Chilima”

Subsequently, the image was shared by several users with similar claims.

Fact-Check

To investigate the authenticity of the above shared image, the DFRAC team reverse-searched it on Google. We found some reports from some media outlets published in Sept. 2020, featuring the same image.

According to these reports, an-26 military aircraft with 27 people on board crashed in Chuguev, Kharkiv region, Ukraine & the death toll from the plane crash rose to 26, after one of the two people with serious condition died in hospital.

Furthermore, the reports stated that the plane was performing a training flight and was landing at the airfield of a military base near the city of Chuguev, Kharkiv region.

Conclusion

It is clear from DFRAC’s Fact-Check that the viral image has been misleadingly linked to the news of Malawian Vice President’s Plane crash. Originally, the image shows the wreckage of Ukraine military plane crash that happened in September 2020.

Analysis: Misleading