Video showing apparent shipwreck is not from Libya

Fact: A video on social media claims that it shows the deadly shipwreck off Libya, which killed 28 Pakistani boys.

Claim: The claim is false. The video does not show the shipwreck but a US guard rescuing a boat on the coast of Oregon, Pacific Northwest America.

On 27 February 2023, a Facebook video was shared with an Urdu caption:

لیبیا میں کشتی ڈوبنے سے گجرات کے 28 لڑکے جان بحق

[Translated: 28 boys of Gujarat died after the boat sank in Libya]

The video shows waves crashing the boat before the water knocked it over. The video was shared after at least 69 people died in a boat crash on the coast of Italy, including Pakistani citizens, on 26 February 2023.

The Foreign Office of Pakistan announced that seven Pakistani nationals died in another shipwreck in Libya on the very same day.

Fact or Fiction?

To investigate the video claim, Soch Fact Check conducted an InVID analysis. The results found an NDTV news article published on 6 February 2023. The report is titled “Caught On Camera: Huge Wave Flips Yacht During A Dramatic Rescue in the US.” The body of the news article reads, “A terrifying video has surfaced on the internet which shows a monster wave flipping and rolling a yacht off the Pacific coast in the US. The video shows a coastguard attempting to rescue a man onboard when a giant wave overturned a boat.” A screengrab of the video is featured in the article in which the US coastguard’s Twitter account @USCGPacificNW is mentioned.

The same video was posted as part of a thread narrating the ordeal by the official Twitter account of the United States Coast Guard Pacific Northwest, on 4 February 2023.

The NDTV report also linked a BBC article that also shared the same story. BBC story reads that “A wave overturned a boat in rough seas off the Pacific coast of the US, as the coastguard was attempting to rescue a person on board. The boat was about six miles (10km) from land, at the mouth of the Columbia River in the northwest of the country.” 

Virality

The false claim is shared here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook. On Twitter, it can be found here, here, and here.

Conclusion: The video of a ship being turned over by water claiming that it shows the shipwreck at Libya is false. The video was filmed in the Pacific Northwest and shows US coast guards rescuing a person on the boat.