WebQoof: Viral Pic of Baby ‘Rescued’ From Lion Air Crash is Fake

The baby in the original image was saved from a ferry that sank in Indonesia’s Selayar island on 3 July, 2018.

A viral picture of a baby in a life jacket, purportedly rescued from the Lion Air plane’s wreckage, is fake. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

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An image shared nearly 5,000 times in the first 24 hours since the Indonesian plane crash, showed a crying baby in a life jacket, purportedly rescued from the Lion Air airplane which crashed into the sea off Jakarta on Monday, with 189 people on board.

However, the image being shared is fake. In reality, the image is of a baby who had been rescued from a ferry which sank into the Indonedia’s Selayar island in July, NDTV, quoting a report from news agency AFP, stated. Thirty-four people had died and more than 150 were rescued in that accident.

Adding to this, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency spokesman, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho tweeted saying:

There are many social media posts that claim to show an image of a baby who survived the flight JT610 plane crash. This photo, in fact, shows a baby who was rescued from (a boat) that sank... on Tuesday, 3 July, 2018. So this information is a hoax. Please don’t spread hoaxes.”

"For all of us, please don't spread photos of victims and hoaxes. Please be wise," Nugroho, further said in his tweet.

Sutopo, who has made a name for himself as a straight-talker, also highlighted a number of other fake pictures and videos that are making the rounds.

He also warned against other pieces of fake news, including images of passengers with air masks on and a video of people screaming, both falsely claiming to show the final few minutes before the crash, PTI reported.

He further stated that some of the images had been taken on different flights "some time ago" during turbulence and that all the passengers had survived.

A video on YouTube that claims to show the jet crashing into the water, was actually of a hijacked Ethiopian Airline that crash-landed in the Indian Ocean in 1996, he said.

A misleading image of plane debris found by rescuers dates back to a Lion Air accident in 2013, near the runway of a Bali Airport, the PTI report, quoting Sutopo, added.

(With inputs from PTI)

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