A post is being shared on social media accompanied by a video in which a few paratroopers are seen struggling to land. The post claims them as belonging to the Ugandan Special Forces. Let’s fact-check this post through this article.
Claim: Video of Ugandan Special Forces paratroppers failing to land properly.
Fact: The Paratroopers display shown in the video took place during the 201st Independence day celebration of the Central American country Honduras. On 15 September 2022, 40 Air Force Paratroopers jumped from helicopters as part of a show at the José de la Paz Herrera National Stadium. Due to wind, some of them landed poorly. The visuals taken in Honduras are falsely being shared as those of Uganda’s Special Forces’ failed parachute landing. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We ran a keyword search on the internet and were led to a YouTube video titled ‘Parachute Display By Honduras’s Special Forces,’ which contains the same video from the viral post. Videos with claims similar to the Viral post are also available on YouTube. Taking a hint from the first video, we ran a keyword search on the internet and found news reports on the incident.
Reportedly, this incident occurred during Honduras’s 201’st Independence day celebrations on 15 September 2022. ‘40 paratroopers jumped from helicopters from 6,500 feet to land in front of screaming, awe-inspiring fans at the José-de-la-Paz-Herrera Stadium in the city of Tegucigalpa. Or that was the plan. But high winds drastically blew the experienced skydivers off their intended course in a way that thankfully didn’t end in tragedy,’ Nydailypaper reported.
CNN also published a video about this incident and said, ‘A parachuting show for the Independence of Honduras did not have the best outcome because of the wind.’
The images of the ‘José-de-la-Paz-Herrera Stadium ‘ from Google maps match the visuals from the viral video.
A few other news reports on this incident can be read here and here. A video of the paratrooper’s show during the Independence day celebrations can be watched here. In this video, the failed landings can be viewed from other angles.
To sum up, a video recorded during an independence day event in Honduras is falsely shared as Ugandan paratroopers struggling to land.
