As the India-China conflict continues to remain a touchy subject for Indians, any report in the valley is taken with great concern. On Friday, there were several unverified reports that an IAF or army helicopter crashed in Ladakh, which also led three casualties.
The claim
Twitter was buzzing with posts about a deadly chopper crash of an IAF Cheetah helicopter in Ladakh on Friday. As a result of this, three army officials lost their lives. The viral posts claimed that Major Abhijai Thapa, Captain Avinash Somavanshi and Major Vikas Varyani were allegedly killed in the crash.
The posts were widely circulated not just on Twitter, but also on Facebook and WhatsApp groups.
Fact-check
IBTimes fact-check team investigated the truth behind the posts. The incident was being passed off as a new one, where in fact it had originally occurred in 2014. Major Thapa, Varyani and Captain Somavanshi died in a crash in 2014 when the Cheetah helicopter had taken off on a test flight and crashed moments later in UP's Bareilly.
Hence, IBTimes has arrived at the conclusion that the news of the IAF Cheetah helicopter's crash in Ladakh on Friday is fake.
