As India is gearing up toward the last phase of its 2024 Lok Sabha elections, political leaders’ public meetings have also peaked. Amidst this, a video of a man hanging onto a helicopter has recently gone viral on social media. It is being claimed to show a supporter of PM Modi holding on to the landing skid of Modi’s helicopter. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video of a Modi fan hanging onto the landing skid of Modi’s helicopter.
Fact: This is a video from 2016. This incident happened in Kenya’s Bungoma during a mourning ceremony for a Kenyan businessman. When a helicopter carrying his dead body was taking off from the ceremony location, a man named ‘Saleh Wanjala’ held onto its landing skid and dangled as it flew. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on a few of its keyframes. This search led us to news reports (here, here, and here) on this incident from 2016. Contrary to the viral claim, this incident occurred in Kenya, not India.
As per the news reports, this event transpired during a mourning ceremony for a businessman named Jacob Juma in Bungoma, Kenya.
“As the helicopter carrying Juma’s body attempted to take off, however, a local man – identified as Saleh Wanjala by Kenyan media – clung to the helicopter skis and would not let go, despite the pilot lowering the helicopter for him to drop off, instead flying off into the distance,” reported the Independent
You can find videos of the same incidents from different angles here and here.
Saleh Wanjala was later charged (here and here) in Bungoma court for endangering his life and that of the helicopter pilot by doing this act.
To sum up, the viral video of a man hanging onto a helicopter is old and filmed in Kenya. It has nothing to do with India or PM Modi.
(This story was originally published by Factly, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective)
