Claim: A photo shows the underwater wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which went missing in 2014 with 239 people aboard.
Fact: The photo is unrelated to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370), which is still missing. In fact, it shows the Tristar airplane wreck, which sunk in 2019 in the Gulf of Aqaba.
Fact or Fiction?
On 2 May 2023, Twitter user King Roy (@RoyIsThaTruth) shared a photo of an abandoned and rusty plane with the claim that the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 had been found.
“Malaysia Airplane MH370 that disappeared 9 years ago has been found under ocean with no human skeleton. The plane had 239 passengers on board,” the tweet is captioned.
On 8 March 2014, the plane carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers disappeared over the South China Sea during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
A reverse image search led Soch Fact Check to an Instagram video posted by Deep Blue Dive Center on 7 April 2023. “Tristar Airplane Wreck Red Sea, Aqaba JO,” the post is captioned.
The company, which offers scuba diving lessons in Aqaba, has posted other videos of the plane, here and here, suggesting it shows the Tristar airplane wreck in Aqaba, Jordan.
In July 2022, CNN reported that the Lockheed Martin L1011 Tristar airplane was photographed underwater in the Red Sea by American diving expert and underwater photographer Brett Hoelzer. The jet was sunk in 2019 in the waters in the Gulf of Aqaba to create an artificial reef to encourage marine life.
Al Jazeera reported in March 2023 that the disappearance of MH370 still remains a mystery as the fuselage and black box of the plane have not been recovered, and the bodies of the victims have not been found either.
The Guardian reported that families of MH370 victims have called on the Malaysian government to renew the search for the aircraft on the nine-year anniversary of the flight’s disappearance.
Virality:
The claim was posted here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
The tweet by @RoyIsThaTruth gained significant traction with 686,600 people viewing the photo, 2,918 likes and 748 retweets.
On Facebook, the photo was
Conclusion: The viral photo does not show the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. It is actually from Aqaba, Jordan, where a plane was sunk in 2019 in the Red Sea to create an artificial reef to encourage marine life.