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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke February 4, 2025

No, this video doesn’t show the Jan. 29 plane crash in Washington D.C.

If Your Time is short

  • This video doesn’t show the Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter. It’s from a video game. 

An American Airlines flight collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter the night of Jan. 29, but a video that garnered more than 216,000 views doesn’t show it. 

"Airplane crash with hilocopter in washington dc," a Jan. 30 Facebook post said, misspelling "helicopter."

The post included a video that showed a burning plane crashing on a highway. 

"The plane crashes just won’t end this year," Tagalog text over the video said.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

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Ignoring, for a moment, that the video is clearly a simulation, there are some key differences between the Facebook post’s clip and the deadly Jan. 29 collision. 

The video on Facebook shows a daytime scene with blue skies as the plane careens onto the road. 

The American Airlines flight and military helicopter collided in the dark at 8:47 p.m. over the Potomac River. News organizations, such as CNN, have aired and published footage of the collision, which doesn’t resemble the Facebook post’s scene.

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The American Airlines flight was a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The plane in the Facebook video says "Caipira," the name of a fictional airline in the video game "Grand Theft Auto." 

We rate claims this video shows the Jan. 29 airplane-helicopter collision False.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Loreben Tuquero contributed to this report. 

 

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No, this video doesn’t show the Jan. 29 plane crash in Washington D.C.

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