Fact check: Purported fighter jet crash video created with simulation game

A video of a plane crash was created with a simulation game but has been shared in online posts that say it shows footage of a real F-35 fighter jet that crashed on Sept 17 in South Carolina.

On Sept 18, debris from the crashed F-35B Lightning II jet was found in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, the US military’s Joint Base Charleston said in a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

On Sept 20, a post on X said: “Breaking: Actual video if the F35 crashing in the woods in Charleston South Carolina captured by hikers is released.” The video shows an aircraft descending from a purple and pink-coloured sky before an explosion is seen in the distance.

The watermark @iceman_fox1 on the video leads to a widely-viewed post on TikTok with the caption: “BREAKING: A group of hikers capture on video an F-35B fighter jet crashing near Charleston, South Carolina.”

The same video can be seen on the same user’s Instagram page, with a similar caption and adds that the footage was “Filmed with Digital Combat Simulator,” a free-to-play combat flight simulation game.

User @iceman_fox1’s Instagram and TikTok accounts describe its content in the bio as “Realistic DCS videos.”

User @iceman_fox1 said in an email that the video "was created with Digital Combat Simulator, like every other video on that channel."

“At this time, no official images or video relating to this mishap or the crash site have been released,” US Marine Corps Captain Joe Leitner, deputy director of communication strategy and operations for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, said in a Sept 21 email.

Reuters Fact Check previously addressed a miscaptioned UFO video in August that was created using DCS by user @iceman_fox1.

Verdict

Miscaptioned. The circulating video was created with a simulation game and is not official footage of the Sept 17 F-35 fighter jet crash.

ALSO READ: US finds debris from fighter jet 1 day after crash