Old fighter jet photos surface in posts about military planes damaged in Taiwan quake
After several Taiwanese military aircraft suffered minor scratches during the island's strongest earthquake in 25 years in April 2024, social media posts falsely claimed two old photos showed the damaged jets. But one picture shows damage to a US military airbase after a 1992 hurricane, while the second shows a public demonstration of Taiwanese fighter jet capacity in 2022.
"The walls on the forts, hangars and barracks at the Hualien Air Force Base have peeled off, while the earthquake turned the planes into bumper cars, eight of the F-16 fighter jets were damaged from the collisions...." read part of the simplified Chinese caption of a Weibo post here on April 3, 2023.
The two accompanying images showed a stationary jet amongst debris in front of a damaged hangar; and workmen under the wing of another aircraft.
The claim surfaced after a magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck Taiwan on April 3 -- the strongest since 1999 -- killing 17 and injuring more than 1,100. Strict building codes and widespread disaster readiness were credited with averting an even bigger catastrophe.
Taiwan media reported that "at least eight of its military's F-16 fighter jets" in Hualien -- one of its most advanced jets purchased from the United States -- sustained "scratches to the body of the aircraft" during the quake (archived link).
False posts sharing unrelated photos spread across Chinese content-sharing sites including Xigua Shipin, Zhihu and NetEase; the images were also included in a report by the pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao Daily.
The United States is Taiwan's most important ally, and the island has been at the centre of tensions with China, which claims it as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to bring it under Beijing's control.
US base
Combined keyword and reverse image searches on Google found the first photo of the damaged hangar published in 2012 on a US Air Force Civil Engineer Center webpage about the impact of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 on a military base in the southeastern state of Florida (archived links here and here).
It was captioned, "Destruction of Homestead Air Force Base after Hurricane Andrew" and credited to the US Air Force.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the misused photo (left) and the US Air Force image (right):
The category five Hurricane Andrew was the strongest storm to hit the US until Irma made landfall in 2017 (archived link).
Miami, where the Homestead Air Force Base was located, was particularly hard hit, with damage costing at least $34 billion.
Military drill
Further keyword and reverse image searches on Google found the second photo corresponded to one published in a report by Taiwan's Central News Agency on August 17, 2022 (archived link).
The report states media organisations were invited to view a demonstration of Taiwan's F-16V fighter jet's capabilities at the airbase in Hualien.
The photo's traditional Chinese caption translates as: "The 5th Tactical Composite Wing of the Air Force publicly demonstrated the potential mounting capabilities of the F-16V fighter jets at the Hualien base on August 17, ground crew demonstrated the loading of harpoon missiles, sidewinder missiles and other weapons."
Below is a screenshot comparison between the misrepresented photo (left) and the photo published by CNA (right):
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) addressed the false online claims in a press conference on April 9, 2024 (archived link).
Air force chief of staff Tsao Chin-ping said eight military aircraft sustained minor scratches in the earthquake, but all the jets were repaired soon afterwards.
AFP has debunked other false claims following the April 2024 earthquake in Taiwan here, here and here.
