Footage shows passengers praying onboard an Azerbaijan Airlines flight before it crashed in Kazakhstan on 25 December 2024.
False. The clip was taken during an Air Algérie flight that experienced a technical problem in September 2024. It returned to Algiers and landed safely.
Social media posts claim to show a clip of passengers saying “Allahu Akbar” onboard an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crash-landed in Kazakhstan on 25 December, but the footage was not taken on this flight.
The clip shows the inside of an aircraft cabin where emergency oxygen masks have dropped from overhead panels. Multiple passengers can be heard saying “Allahu Akbar”. The overlaid text says: “Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashes Allah Hu Akbar”. One Facebook post has been shared more than 10,000 times.
The Azerbaijan Airlines plane, Flight J2-8243, took off from Baku, Azerbaijan on 25 December 2024, and was bound for Grozny, a city in the Russian republic of Chechnya. The cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but some evidence reportedly suggests the aircraft may have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya.
The flight diverted to Aktau, Kazakhstan, but crashed before reaching the airport. Thirty eight people were killed while 29 other passengers survived, some with serious injuries.
However, the footage being shared was not filmed on the Azerbaijan Airlines flight—it actually shows an Air Algérie flight on 22 September 2024. This flight was due to land in Istanbul but returned to Algiers, from where it had taken off, because of a technical problem. The plane landed safely and no one was injured.
The same clip was shared on Facebook and TikTok on 23 September 2024, and other footage of the scene was shared the following day.
The clip also appears in a video montage that includes footage from other planes, including severe turbulence on a flight in 2019, as well as genuine footage from the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash.
Miscaptioned videos are a form of misinformation we see often online, especially those claiming to show footage from conflicts, natural disasters, and other widely reported news stories. You can find more information on how to verify images and videos you see online using our guides.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this footage shows an Air Algérie plane that experienced a “technical problem” in September 2024, and was not taken during the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crash-landed in Kazakhstan on 25 December 2024.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.