Bloggers catch news outlets fooled by crash photos hoax
Last Updated: Monday, June 22, 2009 | 4:18 PM ET
CBC News
The return of an online photo hoax hooked several news outlets in recent days, with a Dutch radio station and TV channels in Bolivia and Poland falling for images purportedly captured just before the crash of Air France Flight 447.
Bolivian station PAT, Poland's TVN24 and BNR of Netherlands are among the outlets that received the dramatic images — allegedly depicting the aircraft being torn apart and a passenger being sucked out of the plane — and proceeded to use them on-air, according to internet bloggers and commentary sites.
"On Thursday, two photographs were aired on our prime-time news report and on Friday we apologized," Eddy Luis Franco, news director for the privately owned PAT television station, told Agence France-Presse on Monday.
An email message accompanying the hoax images claimed that a passenger on the Air France flight had taken the pictures seconds before the plane crashed into the Atlantic.
Air France Flight 447 crashed in the ocean off the northeast coast of Brazil on the night of May 31. All 228 people aboard were killed.
The photos actually depict footage from the pilot episode of the hit U.S. television drama Lost (fans of the show pointed out that Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly is seen in the bottom left of the photos) and have previously turned up as part of an online hoax.
Hoax originated in 2006
Similar claims were made in the fall of 2006 when the images were distributed widely via email following the mid-air collision between Gol Airlines Flight 1907, a jetliner, and an Embraer Legacy executive jet over Brazil.
Though the Embraer was able to land at an airstrip, the larger plane crashed in the Amazon jungle and its crew and all passengers aboard were killed.
At that time, an email accompanying the same photos alleged that they were taken by a brave passenger on the Gol flight who had managed to snap the shots before the crash. It was alleged that recovery officials found the pictures on a digital camera's memory stick discovered among the wreakage.
However, a Brazilian blogger writing under the name Cardoso admitted to perpetuating the 2006 hoax.
He said he constructed an error-filled email with "obviously fake" images to prove that most people today seek out unbelievable footage or images in the news, choose to accept conspiracy theories and don't take the time to question or think critically about the source of information.
