Fake videos spread claiming to show Singapore Airlines turbulence incident – Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

In the aftermath of a new story about a flight between London and Singapore that experienced heavy turbulence in which a British man passed away, a number of videos are spreading on social media claiming to show footage of the incident.

On May 21st 2024, a Singapore Airlines flight between Singapore and London had to divert to Bangkok after a sudden bout of severe turbulence. One of the passengers, a 73-year old British man, died on the flight from a “likely” heart attack.

In the aftermath of the incident, many social media users – many with large followings simply looking to bait users into engaging – have shared false videos purporting to show footage of the turbulence from inside the plane.

Most significantly a 12 second video showing severe turbulence inside a plane that resulted in an air stewardess (wearing yellow) being thrown to the ceiling of the plane is spreading on social media.

However, this video isn’t from the Singapore Airlines incident. In fact this video dates back to 2019 and shows sudden turbulence on an ALK Airlines between Pristina and EuroAirport in Basel. In the video the air stewardess is clearly wearing yellow when Singapore Airlines stewardesses wear a blue and orange Asian batik style uniform.

Additionally various media outlets reporting on the footage back in 2019, as you can see from the Sky News tweet below.

Another widely shared video claiming to show turbulence on the flight, below.

However again this has been taken from another incident, namely a 2023 flight to Mallorca.

Spammers, scammers and engagement-baiters often used stories like this to exploit social media users. We recommend only sharing videos from reputable news outlets and not social media accounts concerned with luring you into engaging with their content.