Claim: A video of a helicopter plunging into floodwaters shared on social media claims to show the Pakistan Army helicopter that crashed in Balochistan in August 2022.
Fact: The post is false as the video is from January 2022 recorded in Afghanistan, not from the recent helicopter crash in Balochistan, Pakistan.
Fact or Fiction?
On 2 August 2022, a Facebook page shared a video of a helicopter plunging into flood water with an Urdu caption;
وندر کے قریب درگاہ سسی پُنوں کے پاس ہیلی کاپٹر گرنے کے مناظر.
Translated to English the caption reads, “Scenes of a helicopter crash near Dargah Sasi Punnu near Winder.”
Winder, a town in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, is where a Pakistan Army helicopter crashed on 1 August 2022 resulting in the deaths of six army officers, including Lieutenant-General Sarfraz Ali.
Soch Fact Check found that the viral video does not show the recent Pakistan Army helicopter crash in Balochistan, it actually depicts an incident that took place in Afghanistan and can be found online as early as 7 January 2022.
Soch Fact Check previously debunked a claim about the Pakistan Army helicopter catching fire before crashing as well as old photos falsely linked to the crash.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the last 30 days period since 15 July to 15 August using the following search terms:
وندر کے قریب درگاہ سسی پُنوں کے پاس فوجی ہیلی کاپٹر گرنے کے مناظر
And found that a total of 130 posts have been shared on Facebook with this term and they received a total of 3,511 interactions, including the original post receiving 89 likes and 10 comments.
This video with false claim was shared here, here, here and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: A viral video shows a helicopter in Afghanistan in January 2022, it does not show the Pakistan Army helicopter that crashed in Balochistan in August 2022.