From Baby Survivor To 'Last Photo' On Flight: All The Hoaxes Of The Lion Air Crash So Far
Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho has been taking down the hoaxes on Twitter.
The viral image of a crying baby in a life vest is not a survivor of the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 that occurred on Monday, 29 October
In one such post that was being shared, it read: "Thanks God for saving this baby, a victim of the JT 610 flight covered in life jacket by the baby’s mother. Unfortunately, the mother has not been found until now. Please be patient, dear baby. Hopefully you will become a religious child."
The user has since deleted the post and apologised for "wrongly interpreting" the photo.
The photo was taken during rescue operations of the KM Lestari ferry tragedy in July earlier this year
AFP reported that 34 passengers died in the incident, while 155 passengers were rescued.
On 4 July, 2018 the captain of KM Lestari had to ground the ferry due to strong winds and high waves. The terrible weather had caused damage to the ferry's portside hull and it began taking on water.
Most of the passengers had been wearing life jackets during the incident.
Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho took to Twitter to call out the hoax, while making a plea to stop sharing it.
Sutopo also warned against other hoaxes that had been circulating around the web following the tragedy that has left no survivors
Two other images and a video that have gone viral purportedly show the condition of passengers on flight JT 610 before it crashed.
The photos were taken during a Sriwijaya Air flight that suffered heavy turbulence "some time ago". All passengers on that flight had survived.
The video, however, came from a different Lion Air flight from Padang to Jakarta that also experienced heavy turbulence. The flight, too, landed safely.
Meanwhile, two widely shared images that claim to be the plane's debris are also misleading
"This is a photo of the Lion Air JT-904 wreckage which experienced misfortune at the I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, on 13 April, 2013. Don't spread the hoax," Supoto tweeted.
The other image looks like this:
Image via NPR
Lion Air flight JT-610 lost contact just 13 minutes after its take-off from Jakarta:
The plane had only been in use for three months before the tragedy occurred:
One lucky Indonesian man was due to to board the same flight, but had been thwarted by heavy traffic:
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