Footage of Philadelphia plane crash misrepresented as 'Israel after Iranian attack'
After Iran responded to strikes on its military and nuclear facilities by firing hundreds of ballistic missiles into Israeli cities, a video was shared in posts falsely claiming it showed the damage inflicted on Tel Aviv. The video in fact shows the aftermath of a medical plane crash in the US city of Philadelphia in February.
"Israel's capital Tel Aviv damaged by Iranian attack," reads the Bengali-language caption of a video shared on Facebook on 025.
The video shows a carpark littered with debris and flickering embers, with larger fires burning in the background.
Image
Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on June 16, 2025
The video surfaced after Iran struck Israel with barrages of missiles, a day after a massive onslaught against its nuclear and military facilities killed top generals and nuclear scientists (archived link).
Israel said its attacks on June 13 aimed to prevent its arch-rival from acquiring atomic weapons -- a charge Tehran denies.
The longtime foes have continued trading deadly fire in their most intense confrontation in history, fuelling fears of a drawn-out conflict that could engulf the Middle East (archived link).
Iran's health ministry said at least 224 people have been killed and more than 1,200 wounded, while Israel's prime minister's office says at least 24 people have been killed and 592 others injured.
The footage was also shared in similar posts elsewhere on Facebook and YouTube.
While Israeli cities and towns have been hit by Iranian strikes, the video does not show the damage caused by the attacks.
Philadelphia plane crash
Image
Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the YouTube video (right)
AFP reported that a twin-engine Learjet 55 had plummeted towards a busy Philadelphia neighbourhood, exploding on impact and showering wreckage over homes and vehicles (archived link). The jet was carrying a Mexican child home from a hospital in Philadelphia.
Local media reported that all six people on board the plane were killed, as well as a man and a woman who were in separate cars on the ground at the time of the crash (archived link).
AFP geolocated the video to Cottman Avenue and the adjacent Roosevelt Mall in Philadelphia (archived link).
Google Street View imagery of the area showed a red-bricked building opposite a coffee shop that matches those seen in the circulating video (archived link).
Image
Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and Google Street View imagery (right), with corresponding features highlighted by AFP
AFP previously fact-checked false claims the same video depicted an Indian airstrike on Pakistan.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
38 minutes ago
- France 24
Iranian pilgrims in Iraq long to return home
The more than 400 Iranians had recently completed their hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and since crossing the border by land into Iraq, they had not received any updates. One woman dressed in black collapsed in tears after receiving a message informing her that her son was missing after Israeli strikes on Tehran, and that her son-in-law -- an official killed in a bombardment -- had been laid to rest in her absence. Other women sighed with relief when they finally connected with children and grandchildren via video call. "We fear for our children," Amna Hammudi said, her voice trembling, before finally managing to reach her kids in Iran after two days of silence. "We are all worried about our families, our cities and our country," the mother of four added. In a parking lot in Ayn Tamr, near the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 10 buses wait for permission to transport the pilgrims to the Mehran border crossing between Iraq and Iran. 'They brought war on us' Iraq is expected to receive 76,000 Iranian pilgrims by land after they were stranded in Saudi Arabia by airport closures following the surprise Israeli attack on Iran last week. It will welcome 2,500 Iranian pilgrims a day in the hope of facilitating their return home, according to Sami al-Massudi, the head of the Iraqi body for pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. Aziz Yussef, 55, said he was still in Saudi Arabia when he learned that a strike hit one kilometre (0.6 miles) from his house in the western city of Kermanshah. "They brought war on us. They are not only fighting us, but also Gaza and Syria, and the Americans are not stopping them," Yussef said. Yussef urged the Iraqi government to speed up the process of getting pilgrims like him home, but even if he crosses into Iran, he doesn't know how he will reach Kermanshah. Whenever an internet connection is available, Yussef and his wife are glued to their phones and the television, hoping for good news. 'God knows' On Friday, Israel launched a surprise attack on its arch foe Iran, hitting military and nuclear facilities and killing top commanders and atomic scientists. It has kept up its bombing campaign since then, with at least 224 people killed in strikes, according to Iranian authorities. Iran has responded with multiple missile salvos targeting Israeli cities, killing at least 24 people there, according to the prime minister's office. Residential areas in both countries have suffered deadly strikes, and large numbers of people have fled Iran's capital. US President Donald Trump warned early Tuesday that Tehran residents should "immediately evacuate" amid fears of a broader conflict that could engulf the region. Kadir Ansari, 70, had just contacted his family back home. "They are good," he said with relief. In residential areas, "there are no armies and no bombs. You are sleeping, and they hit you," he added. Ansari was still in Medina in Saudi Arabia when he learned about the Israeli assault, and now he fears what may come next. Nonetheless, he insists on going back to Kermanshah. "God knows" what will happen after that, he said. © 2025 AFP
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
Male victim breaks 'suffocating' silence on Kosovo war rapes
The father-of-three was raped by a Serbian policeman during the bloody conflict between Albanian guerillas and Serbian armed forces in 1998 and 1999 that eventually saw Kosovo break away from Belgrade. Officials estimate Serbian forces raped up to 20,000 women during the war in which 13,000 people -- mostly ethnic Albanian civilians -- died. Human Rights Watch said Albanian fighters also raped Serbian, Albanian and Roma women in a 2000 report documenting widespread abuse by the combatants. But the precise number is buried by "a deeply entrenched social stigma, which still overshadows wartime rapes", said Bekim Blakaj of Kosovo's Humanitarian Law Center. Nishori told AFP that he hopes his own "difficult" journey -- which at times left him suicidal -- will help others find the strength to cast a light into the darkest corners of the war's atrocities. The 48-year-old said he would not have been able to come forward without his family's support. "It has given me strength. It has played a very, very big role," he said. 'I walked and cried at night' But he knows that the war, which only ended when NATO bombed the Serbian forces into submission, has left many more struggling alone. "I was suffocating. I would leave the house at night. I would feel like screaming. I would walk and cry," he told AFP. The Kosovo government acknowledged the suffering of the victims of wartime rapes by paying them a pension of 270 euros ($313) a month. But 11 years after it was set up, only a few hundred women get the payment. Nishori will be the first man to receive it. Activists say many survivors will never come forward due to the shame attached to rape in Albanian society. "Rape is perceived by our society more as a violation of family honour," said Veprore Shehu from Medica Kosova, which has given psychological support to some 600 female survivors. Nishori's nightmare began when he was pulled from a refugee column in September 1998. He was taken for interrogation to a police station in Drenas -- about 23 kilometres (14 miles) west of Pristina. "When it was my turn to be interrogated, around midnight, two policemen took me to the toilet, where one of them raped me," he said, taking deep breaths as he slowly recounted his ordeal. "When another policeman wanted to do the same, a third policeman came, and perhaps because of my screams, snatched me away from them and returned me to a cell." 'Weapon of war' Blakaj said the vast majority of sexual abuse was perpetrated by Serbian forces on ethnic Albanian women. By the end of the conflict, it had become "a weapon of war" used to create terror among civilians, he said. "Rape by police, paramilitaries and armed forces became widespread and almost routine," a 2017 Amnesty International report into the war concluded. A Serbian army deserter quoted in the report described sexual violence as "normal like taking a shower and having breakfast". On Tuesday, a Pristina court sentenced a Kosovo Serb to 15 years prison for rape during the conflict after a closed trial. It is just the second prosecution for rape during the Kosovo war, a mark of how slow the road to justice has been for victims of crimes now decades old. When Nishori finally revealed his abuse to his family, his oldest daughter, Flutura, urged him to go public. "Dad's story needed to be revealed to show that it wasn't just women who were victims of sexual violence, but men too," the 23-year-old theatre student said. "Nothing has changed in the family since the secret was revealed," she told AFP.
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
'Nobody deserves to suffer like this': Tehran under Israeli bombardment
Iranian authorities have announced that at least 224 people have been killed since the Israeli attacks began. According to the spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health, "1,481 people have been injured or killed', with 90 percent of them being civilians. On the night of June 12 to 13, as the first strikes hit, many Iranian social media accounts described experiencing what felt like an earthquake. Starting June 15, the Israeli army called on Iranians living near military or nuclear facilities to evacuate their homes. However, one of our Observers told us: 'We don't know where these facilities are to avoid them. There could be buildings next to me. How should I know?' This opinion was widely shared by other Iranians on social media. 'This is the north side of our apartment,' our Observer says in this video filmed just after a strike hit a neighbouring building. 'As you can see, the building was hit and destroyed, including the kitchen, bedrooms, and only the south side of our bedrooms, which saved our lives.' 'I'm just trying to survive, my brain doesn't work' On June 13, Maral – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – was woken up when a strike hit an adjacent building. The blast from the attack destroyed her kitchen and living room. Only the bedroom is still relatively intact, if you can call it intact. We asked what had happened, and almost all the neighbours said that something had happened in the middle of the alley, and the sirens were going off. We understood that a house that was right behind our house was hit. We stepped on the ruins of the house and came out. I still didn't know what had happened. After a while, some neighbours came up to us to enquire if we were safe. They told us that it looked like Israel had attacked, and later we read on the internet that several places in Tehran had been hit by Israel. 'We are always victims of Israel and all the warmongers of the world' I am experiencing very strong emotions, even now; I am extremely scared, anxious, sad, among other things. And well, I can't understand it, I can't say exactly what I felt. I thought this was the beginning of a war and that bombs would keep raining down on us. I thought that we would be hit again now. In those first moments, I looked up at the sky to see if I could see anything. And while I was having all these feelings, there were also moments when I thought, quite logically, that I should call people to check on them. It's a very, very complicated experience. Nobody deserves to suffer like this. I'm just trying to survive, my brain doesn't work. I can't process and analyse this, but what I can say is that we are always victims of the policies of the Islamic Republic, and we are always victims of Israel and all the warmongers of the world. The ordinary people are always the victims. I hope that everything will end quickly. On June 16, the Israeli army published an evacuation notice for certain areas of Tehran, a city home to approximately 10 million inhabitants. On the same day, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that 'Tehran will burn' if Iran continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front. Amid escalating Israeli airstrikes on residential districts and increasingly threatening rhetoric from Israeli officials, many Tehran residents decided to leave the city. Multiple videos and testimonies gathered by the FRANCE 24 Observers team confirm unprecedented traffic jams on the roads and highways around the capital. 'We evacuated the city, but it took us 30 hours. On an ordinary day, we could get there in 3 hours,' one resident told us. "They struck the apartment across from us," a woman wrote on a video. "A body was thrown into our apartment," she added. 'The city is half empty, lots of people have left, and shops are closed' However, others, like Farshad – whose name has also been changed – opted to stay in the capital. Two nights ago and yesterday at noon, the attacks were horrible, and the explosions were huge. My wife was really scared and we decided that it's better if she left, but I decided to stay at our home. Every attempt to leave the city is not successful, though. My brother also wanted to leave the city. He spent more than 24 hours stuck in traffic and eventually turned back. The city is half empty, lots of people have left, and shops are closed. I'd say that after the Israeli attacks started and until Saturday night, the situation was not like this, even coffee shops were open. However, after the heavy bombing of Saturday night, and more importantly, the car bombings of yesterday, many people decided to leave the city. I think it was the moment when the phrase, 'they don't hit the civilians,' lost its reasoning among people. However, if I tell you that Tehran is a ghost town, it would be an exaggeration; I still see families walking in the streets. I don't see people running or attacking bakeries or grocery shops. The population stayed civilised, at least for the moment. Regarding the general feeling of people, I have to say that I see anger and hatred toward both sides. Before the attack of Israel on Iran, many experts were saying that another massive protest in the coming weeks is inevitable due to the economic crisis and social pressure of the regime. However, as the attacks continue, and especially after the civilians were killed, I see that more and more people who hate the regime are turning against these attacks and Israel. However, it's too soon to say anything; this anger could go toward any side of the conflict.
