Fact Check: Months-old video from US goes viral as American aircraft that crashed in Australia

A video going viral allegedly shows the US military aircraft that crashed in Australia on August 27 during a joint training exercise with the armed forces of Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and East Timor. A United States Marine Corps aircraft with 23 soldiers aboard crashed on Melville Island in north Australia, killing at least three and critically injuring at least five.

The video showed a thick plume of dark smoke billowing from a median on the highway. A Twitter user wrote while sharing the clip: “US military helicopter crash in Australia. The Silent War.” The archived versions of such claims can be seen here and here.

India Today found that this video predates the recent US military helicopter crash. It shows a February 2023 incident when a Tennessee National Guard Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the US state of Alabama.

Our Probe

Upon reverse searching keyframes from the viral video, we found it in a report published by Yahoo News on February 16, 2023.

Per this report, the video showed an accident that occurred on Highway 53 near Huntsville, Alabama in the US, on February 15, 2023. A Black Hawk helicopter belonging to the Tennessee National Guard crashed in this area. The video was attributed to a person called Trent Angel in this report. Multiple media outlets covered this incident at the time, and attributed the video to the same person.

Reportedly, the Tennessee National Guard aircraft was approaching the Huntsville Executive Airport when it rapidly descended and impacted the ground. Two Tennessee Army National Guard pilots were killed when their UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed during training. They were Chief Warrant Officer 3 Daniel Wadham of Joelton, who had 15 years of service, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Danny Randolph of Murfreesboro, who had 13 years of service. No other persons, civilian or military, were injured.

To sum it up, an old video from Alabama in the US was falsely shared as the recent US military helicopter crash in Australia.