Claim: A video shows Yeti Airlines Flight 691 as it crashed near Nepal’s Pokhara town on 15 January 2023, leaving at least 70 dead.
Fact: The video is actually more than a year old and shows Ilyushin Il-112, a Russian military aeroplane, crashing at the Kubinka airfield in the Moscow Oblast region during a test flight; the accident left three dead. The clip is in no way linked to the 2023 Yeti Airlines crash in Nepal.
On 16 January 2023, Twitter user @yunesh_k posted a video showing an aeroplane flying and dipping sideways before crashing and erupting into a plume of smoke. The tweet was captioned as, “nepal plane crash #PokharaAirport #NepalPlaneCrash #nepalaircrash”.
The text, “pahilako airport Pokhara plane crash Bata bideshi Le Khiche ko video [Tell the foreigner to take the video],” is superimposed on the viral clip. It translates to
On the morning of Sunday, 15 January 2023, Yeti Airlines Flight 691 met with an accident when it crashed into a gorge near Nepal’s Pokhara town, leaving at least 71 people dead.
#9NANC Crash Update:
-Out of 72, 70 bodies have been retrieved.
-25 bodies have been brought to Kathmandu and 23 are being brought to Kathmandu by Nepal Army for post mortem at Teaching Hospital.
-22 bodies are being handed over to their families/relatives at Pokhara.
— Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (@hello_CAANepal) January 17, 2023
Reuters reported that the bodies of 71 of the 72 passengers aboard Yeti Airlines Flight 691 were recovered after Prakash Pokhrel — an official coordinating rescue operation at a Kathmandu airport — said the second-last body had been found.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used key frames from the viral video as input for the reverse image search tools and found this tweet from 17 August 2021, captioned, “Ilyushin Il-112 crashes on approach to Kubinka Airport in Russia following an engine fire. Number of casualties currently unknown.”
Using keywords from the aforementioned caption, we found further details about the crash and news reports from Anadolu Agency, Business Insider, and The Associated Press.
Soch Fact Check, gathering information from the news reports, found that the aircraft was a Russian military aeroplane — the lone prototype — and was damaged beyond repair. The crash, which killed all three people aboard, occurred when the plane was on a test flight at the Kubinka airfield in the Moscow Oblast region, near the country’s capital, Moscow.
Anadolu Agency quoted the aircraft’s production company, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), which is part of the Rostec corporation, as saying, “During a training flight, an Il-112B, light military transport aircraft crashed during landing near the Kubinka airfield in the forest belt. According to preliminary data, three crew members were killed. There are no survivors.”
По информации с места крушения Ил-112, выживших нет. Выражаем соболезнование родным членов экипажа Николая Куимова, Дмитрия Комарова, Николая Хлудеева. ОАК окажет необходимую помощь семьям погибших.Жертв и разрушений на земле нет. На месте происшествия работают оперативные службы
— United Aircraft Corp (@UAC_Russia) August 17, 2021
As per Russian news agency TASS, a UAC spokesperson said, “The plane was piloted by chief pilot of the Ilyushin Aircraft Company, 1st-class test pilot, Hero of Russia Nikolai Kuimov, 1st-class test pilot Dmitry Komarov and 1st-class test flight engineer Nikolai Khludeyev.”
BREAKING: A prototype of the new Russian transport aircraft Il-112V crashed near Moscow. Details to follow. pic.twitter.com/Lmre8M9Zwo
— RT (@RT_com) August 17, 2021
The Russian state-owned television network, Russia Today (RT), tweeted about the crash as well.
A detailed description of the aircraft, as well as the crash, is available on Aviation Safety Network here.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the clip here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, here, here, here, here, here, and here on YouTube, and here on TikTok.
One of the videos has Hindi text running on the bottom. To translate, we used Google Lens; the image below shows the result.
Conclusion: The video is in no way linked to the Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crash in Nepal in January 2023. It is actually more than a year old and shows Ilyushin Il-112, a Russian military aeroplane that crashed at the Kubinka airfield near Moscow during a test flight; the accident left three dead.