Video claims to show helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant. Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A video claims to show the helicopter crash that killed former basketball professional Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven other people.

FALSE

An example of the hoax on Twitter is below.

#KobeBryant helicopter crash live footage

The video shows a helicopter climbing over some mountains before losing control, tail spinning downwards before exploding on the side of a mountain in front of several onlookers.

However the video, which is spreading virally on Twitter and YouTube, does not show the crash that killed Kobe Bryant.

In fact the footage dates back to late 2018, and shows a rescue helicopter crashing in the United Arab Emirates. A number of news stories were published at the time of the crash, including this one.

One instance of this video falsely claiming it showed the crash that killed Bryant was uploaded only hours after the incident and had already accumulated over 4 million views within less than 24 hours.


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Hoaxers and Internet scammers often used fake videos claiming to show high profile events, often in a bid to trick users into downloading malware. However in this case the videos appear to serve nothing more than just a prank.

Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven other people were travelling by helicopter over California. However the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, killing all on board.

It is likely that a number of fake videos purporting to show the crash that killed Kobe Bryant will spread in the aftermath of this death. While there are genuine videos that show the aftermath of the crash, at the time of writing there are no known videos that show the crash itself.