A collage of two pictures showing one hanging snake is doing the rounds on social media. Users have shared the post claiming that the snake was found in the cargo hold of an Air India Express Boeing B-737 flight from Calicut to Dubai, and was reported by a staff member when the flight landed at the Dubai airport.
A Facebook user posted the viral picture with a caption: #Dubai: Snake found in Air India Express plane from #Kerala
Indian aviation body orders probe after the incident in the cargo hold of the plane from #Kozhikode A snake was found in a Dubai-bound Air India Express flight on Saturday.
Air India Express Boeing B-737 flight from Calicut to Dubai took off as scheduled and after landing at Dubai airport, the staff reported a snake on board the aircraft. “Air India Express B737-800 aircraft VT-AXW operated flight IX-343 (Calicut-Dubai). A snake was found in the cargo hold on arrival at Dubai,” a senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official told ANI. Passengers were deplaned safely and the aircraft was fumigated properly before the next operation. “Passengers were safely deplaned and airport fire services were informed. The aircraft has been fumigated,” another DGCA official said. The aviation regulatory body — Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) — has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
You can check the post here.
FACT CHECK
When NewsMobile fact-checked the viral picture, it was found to be misleading.
Running a Keyword Search, we identified an article dated December 10, 2022 on Gulf News, confirming the claim. The article corroborates the fact that a snake was, indeed, found in a Calicut-Dubai Air India Express flight. But we could not find any image to match the viral post.
Conducting a Reverse Image Search of the viral picture, we traced a tweet, dated November 8, 2016, on the official handle of ABC News — the news division of ABC.
Multiple keyframes of the video match the viral pictures and the tweet informs that the incident happened on an Aeromexico flight in 2016.
Another article in The Guardian — dated November 8, 2016 and titled: Snake on a plane: reptile panics passengers on Mexico City flight — informs that the reptile appeared in the cabin of an Aeromexico flight from Torreon to Mexico City in the US.
The video in the article matches exactly with the clip tweeted by ABC, indicating that it has nothing to do with the Air India flight. The same news with the video had been covered by major national and global news websites, including Time, Tribune, CNT, Washington post.
So, the viral clip with its claim is misleading.
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