Unrelated old videos are linked to China's rocket 'Long March 5B' fall into Indian Ocean - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 14, 2021
Multiple videos are being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of China’s ‘Long March 5B’ rocket debris while exploding in the Indian Ocean. They can be seen here, here, and here. The remnants of China’s biggest rocket ‘Long March 5B’ exploded in the Indian Ocean on 09 May 2021. Let’s verify the claim made in these posts.
Claim: Visuals of China’s ‘Long March 5B’ rocket debris falling into the Indian Ocean.
Fact: While the first two videos show the old visuals of SpaceX rocket crashes, the last video shows a meteor crashing into a beach in Australia. These videos are old and have nothing to do with China’s ‘Long March 5B’ rocket crash in the Indian Ocean. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Video-1:
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, a video with similar visuals is found on a Facebook post published on 26 March 2021. This post mentions it as visuals of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket debris passing through the Pacific Northwestern skies across Washington and Oregon. Reporting the same, a user shared this video on the ‘Imgur’ website.
When we searched for more information related to this video, we found an article published by ‘Space.com’ website on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket debris passing through the Pacific Northwestern skies in the United States. This article reported that on 25 March 2021, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket debris created a beautiful light show while passing through the skies across Washington and Oregon. Several news websites published articles on the light show created by SpaceX Falcon 9 debris on 25 March 2021. They can be seen here and here.
Video-2:
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, a similar video was found on an Instagram post published on 04 February 2021.  This user mentioned it as visuals of the SpaceX Starship prototype rocket explosion in February 2021.
When we searched for more sources regarding the video, similar visuals were found in a video published by ‘Al Jazeera’ news channel on 03 February 2021. The description of the video stated that SpaceX’s Starship SN9 prototype rocket had exploded during a landing attempt in Texas. Similar visuals of the explosion are found in the broadcast of the Starship SN9 High-Altitude Flight Test. News articles published about this incident can be seen here and here.
Video-3:
On reverse image search, a video with similar visuals is found on a YouTube channel. The description of the video stated it as visuals of a large-sized meteor exploding at a beach in Australia. When we searched for more details using these keywords, we found an article published about the meteor that exploded in Australia. This article reported that the incident took place in 2016 at a beach in Victoria, Australia. The cameraman who captured these visuals had shared the same video on YouTube with a similar description.
09 May 2021, the remnants of China’s biggest rocket ‘Long March 5B’ exploded in The Indian Ocean. ‘The Guardian’ had shared the footage of ‘Long March 5B’ rocket debris while passing through the skies across Oman and Jordan. Most of the rocket debris reportedly burned up after entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
To sum it up, unrelated old videos are shared as the visuals of the Chinese ‘Long March 5B’ rocket exploding in the Indian Ocean.