Malaysian Flight MH370 Found Underwater Without Skeletons? No!

The photo shows a Lockheed Martin L1011 TriStar plane which was sunk in Jordan's Gulf of Aqaba for diving tourism.

A photo of a dilapidated plane has gone viral on social media platforms, claiming that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 – which had gone missing in March 2014 – has been found underwater with zero skeletons.

(Archives of more claims can be seen here, here and here.)

Is it true?: No.

• We found no credible news reports which said that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was found.

• The viral photo shows a Lockheed Martin L1011 TriStar plane, which was intentionally sunk into Jordan's Gulf of Aqaba to attract divers and create an artificial reef for marine life.

How did we find out?: We ran a reverse image search on the viral photo.

This led us to a CNN article with a similar photo about an abandoned passenger plane – a Lockheed Martin L1011 TriStar – sitting on the floor of the Red Sea.

• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER.

• It mentioned that the plane was abandoned at Jordan's King Hussein International Airport in the early 2000s.

• According to CNN, the plane was sunk in 2019 in the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba to create an artificial reef and promote dive tourism.

• We compared this photo to the one in the claim and noticed many similarities, such as the layout of the cockpit windows and similar damage to the aeroplane's nose.

A keyword search led us to a video shared by an Instagram account 'Bubba Aqaba' which showed the same plane.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bubba Aqaba (@bubba_aqaba)

• The account has shared several photos of the sunk TriStar, which can be seen here, here and here.

YouTube videos by divers: On YouTube, we looked for more visuals of the TriStar in the Gulf of Aqaba and came across several videos shared by divers.

• Many of them show the plane's exteriors, where one can see similar damage on the aircraft's nose.

Conclusion: A viral photo showing a Lockheed Martin L1011 TriStar plane in Jordan's Gulf of Aqaba is being shared with the false claim that it shows Malaysia Airlines' missing flight MH370 which was found with no skeletons.

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