A photograph of an airplane on the ground, surrounded by thick billowing smoke and a few vehicles, is being shared on social media, where users are linking it to the drone attack that happened in Abu Dhabi on Monday, 17 January.
Rebels belonging to Yemen's Houthi movement claimed responsibility for the attack which claimed three lives, of which two were Indian nationals.
However, we found that the photo is from a plane crash which took place in Dubai in 2016, when an Emirates aircraft, that departed from Kerala with 300 passengers on board safely crash landed at Dubai International Airport.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A simple reverse image search led us to several news reports which showed that the reports were from August 2016.
In one such report, Times of India reported that the flight had originated from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala and crash landed at Dubai International Airport around 12:45 PM local time on 3 August 2016.
Emirates confirmed that flight EK521 had been involved in an accident and that there were no fatalities as all 282 passengers and 18 crew members were safe.
As per the Indian Express' report, 226 of those onboard were Indians. The airline later ensured that all passengers on EK521 would receive financial compensation of $7,000 each.
The daily, too, carried the same image which was credited to news agency PTI. We found the image on the archives of the news agency.
The Quint had also carried the story, adding that one firefighter had been killed while battling the blaze and that flights were diverted from the airport for six hours after the incident.
We also observed that the viral photo was morphed to add a few small aircrafts to the upper-left side of the photograph. These objects are not seen in the original photos of the 2016 incident.
WHAT HAPPENED IN ABU DHABI?
Two sites in Abu Dhabi were attacked on Monday, 17 January. The attacks, which was claimed by Houthi rebels from Yemen, claimed three lives and injured six.
While UAE's Foreign Affairs minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan condemned the "unlawful targeting" of their country, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said that they had carried out a "successful military operation" using ballistic missiles and drones against "important and sensitive" sites and installations in the Emirates.
Clearly, a 2016 photo of an Emirates plane crash in Dubai was falsely linked to the recent attack in Abu Dhabi, UAE that claimed three lives.
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