Claim: Several videos and images show that a Mauritania Airlines aircraft carrying over 200 Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia has crashed.
Fact: No such air accident has occurred. Moreover, some of the videos and images are old and unrelated, while others are AI-generated as well.
At the end of May 2025, several videos and images circulated on social media platforms with the claim they showed a Mauritania Airlines aircraft, carrying Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, that crashed in the Red Sea (archived here, here, here, here, and here).
According to the captions accompanying the said posts, the Mauritania Airlines plane was carrying 220 pilgrims. Some claims mention 200 or 210 passengers.
Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to the Kaaba, will be commemorated from 4 to 9 June 2025 in the Gregorian calendar this year, which corresponds with the five-day period from 8 to 13 Zil Hajj, the 12th month in the Islamic lunar calendar.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check looked for any verifiable reports about any such plane crash ahead of Hajj this year by reputable media outlets but did not find any. Had such an accident occurred, it would have been major news.
Video 1
To ascertain the source of the video, we searched the word “TANAP” written on the aircraft’s livery, combined with the words “plane” and “water”; this led us to a clip titled “Turkey Airbus A330 Sinking Ibrice 14 June 2019”, which was posted on 18 June the same year by YouTube channel DiveMagazine.
TANAP, in fact, stands for the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, which was “built to transport the natural gas extracted in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Region first to Turkey and then to Europe”. It does not connect to Mauritania.
At the 2:05 mark, the same visuals appear as the viral video in question, confirming that the clip is not only old but unrelated.
Secondly, the colour scheme of Mauritania Airlines aircraft is green and yellow, which is different from the plane seen in viral video.
A 14 June 2019 report by Anadolu Agency explains that the aircraft “was lowered into the sea in northwestern Turkey to boost scuba diving tourism”. The plane — an Airbus A330 passenger jet — was “scuttled a mile away off the Ibrice Port in Edirne province at a ceremony”, it added.
DIVE Magazine, which published the YouTube video linked above, wrote on its website: “Turkey has sunk an Airbus A330 aircraft in the Aegean Sea as an artificial reef for divers. […] The decommissioned aircraft was sunk as part of an arrangement between the tourist authorities and TANAP.”
The same was reported by the BBC in June 2019.
Video 2
Reverse-searching keyframes from the second clip led us to this page on Tamasha, a free Iranian video-sharing service, where it was posted in 2018.
We used the same caption as search input on Google, which led us to this video from 29 October 2018, and its English translation that turned up this clip from 31 October from the same year.
The Indonesian Lion Air Flight JT610, which was carrying 189 people, had crashed into the Java Sea on 29 October 2018, leaving no survivors. The aircraft, which was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, “lost contact with ground officials 13 minutes after takeoff”, Reuters reported at the time.
Video 3
The third video is most likely footage from the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game series as it features planes operated by a “FlyUS” airline with the word “Fly” written in red and “US” in blue. While there is indeed a FlyUS airline, it offers cargo services and its original logo has “Fly” in blue and “US” in red.
Similar footage of the same airline’s flights can be seen on different TikTok accounts such as this and this. Interestingly, the video was also posted here on 28 March 2025, which predates the viral social media posts.
Image 1
This image was generated through artificial intelligence (AI), as is evident by the Meta AI logo watermarked on the bottom-right corner of the image.
Image 2 & 3
This visual is a combination of two images. A clearer version of the first one can be seen here and it is likely AI-generated as it has several identifying markers, such as unrealistic plane windows and distorted figures of individuals, possibly rescue workers or security officers.
The bodies at the scene also appear strange; one has a cloth draped over it unrealistically and another has a bag slung over the shroud. Two of them have something like a helmet over their heads.
We also ran the picture through an ‘AI vs Human Image Detector’ on Hugging Face, as well as AI or Not, both of which said it was likely AI-generated.
The second photo is definitely old and most likely from 2007; it has been dated 10 May 2007 and appeared online the same month here, here, here, here, and here. The accompanying captions state that it was an “Ilyushin Il-76” that was destroyed on the ground “while it was being loaded in preparation for a flight to Brazzaville” in Congo.
What have Mauritania Airlines, authorities said?
In addition, Mauritania Airlines has denied the claim in a “clarification statement” (archive) on its Facebook page, saying, “Some foreign social media pages have circulated malicious rumours about a plane carrying Mauritanian pilgrims crashing off the Red Sea. This news is completely unfounded. Mauritania Airlines confirms that all Mauritanian pilgrims have arrived safely and securely in the Holy Land, thank God, and no accidents have been recorded regarding the flights organized in this context.”
The airline added that it “organised three outbound flights on 23, 24, and 25 May 2025, as part of the plan to transport Mauritanian pilgrims to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”. Moreover, according to the approved schedule, “the return flights are scheduled, God willing, for June 12, 13, and 14, 2025”, it said.
In a report published 29 May 2025, the state-run Mauritanian News Agency (AMI) said the arrival of Mauritanian pilgrims in Mecca was complete.
Lastly, Egyptian journalist khaled mahmoued wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the director of Hajj at Mauritania’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs, El Waly Taha, has “denied the claim, confirming that all Mauritanian pilgrims are safe and have arrived in the holy lands without incident”. The same was mentioned in two reports here and here, as well as by FACTLY and FactCrescendo, both of which are accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). However, Soch Fact Check has not independently verified Taha’s statement.
Therefore, we conclude that the claim is false.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook.
It also appeared here, here, and here on Instagram, here on Threads, here on YouTube, here on X (formerly Twitter), and here on TikTok.
Conclusion: No such air accident has occurred. Moreover, the videos and images are old and unrelated, while some of them are AI-generated as well.
Background image in cover photo: aboodi vesakaran
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