Claim: Two pictures show a plane landing in Beirut during an Israeli airstrike near the airport.
Fact: These images are AI generated and, hence, fake.
On 21 October 2024, X user @s_m_marandi posted images of planes apparently landing on a runway with an explosion in the background. According to the post, the picture showed Beirut airport during an explosion carried out by the “chosen people,” implying it shows an Israeli airstrike.
Israeli airstrikes landed close to Lebanon’s Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on 21 October 2024, as reported by CBS News, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and ABC News. AFP also reported that Beirut’s main airport has been under threat since Israel “intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah last month.”
However, a closer look at the two photos in the claim (shown below) revealed that they are not from actual Israeli airstrikes on Beirut.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search for both images, which primarily resulted in instances of users on X claiming they showed scenes from Beirut airport. A few of these can be seen here and here.
However, our search results also showed instances of users on X claiming these images were fake and AI-generated. These can be seen here, here, and here.
Moreover, a user who had previously claimed that one of the pictures showed Beirut airport, made a new post about that photo being false. This can be seen here.
A keyword search for “Beirut airport” led us to a fact-check conducted on these photos by AFP, which also claimed that the photos had been generated using AI.
AFP spoke to Matthew Stamm, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, regarding the photos, who found “several ‘irregularities’ suggesting the images were artificially generated.” AFP also consulted Siwei Lyu, director of the University of Buffalo’s Media Forensic Lab, who “pointed out multiple ’artifacts’ in the planes” that were “inauthentic.”
These irregularities include a light pole that apparently passes through one of the plane’s wings, as shown below:
Source: AFP
Another peculiarity is the odd shape of the landing gear, as shown below:
Source: AFP
In addition to AFP, another IFCN signatory India Today Fact Check, investigated one of the images in question and reported that it was AI-generated. Feeding the image to the AI-detection tool Hive Moderation resulted in a 91.7% chance of it having been generated with AI, the article noted. Similarly,it added that another AI-detection tool called TrueMedia revealed “substantial evidence” that the photo had been created using AI.
Since users had pointed out here and here that the plane in the viral image belonged to Middle East Airlines (MEA), India Today Fact Check featured a comparison of the viral photo with that of an MEA aircraft, as shown below:
Source: India Today Fact Check
One of the biggest differences between the two images is the detail outlined in blue, where the curvature of the red strip plummets in the viral image, but stays relatively straight in the picture of the MEA aircraft. The aircraft shown in the viral image does not carry the MEA logo either.
Moreover, regarding the image where the plane is on the runway, a fact-check by the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) stated that it has its own set of inaccuracies, such as “curved and crooked rows of windows on the building at the back left,” “landing gear tires on the aircraft that are too far apart,” and “strangely illuminated doors on the aircraft fuselage.”
Media experts, AI-detection tools, and specific analysis of the images in the claim lead Soch Fact Check to conclude that they are AI-generated. Therefore, we rate the claim as false.
Virality
On X, the images were found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook, the images were found here, here, and here.
On YouTube, the images were found here.
Conclusion: The two images are AI-generated and do not show planes landing at an airport in Beirut, Lebanon during Israeli airstrikes in October.
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Background image in cover photo: X
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