A video is going viral on social media, narrating the bizarre story of ‘San Diego Flight 513,’ which allegedly went missing after taking off from Germany in 1954 while en route to Brazil, and then safely landed in Brazil 35 years later, in 1989 (here, here, here, here, and here). In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: San Diego Flight 513, which was en route from Germany to Brazil, went missing after taking off from Germany in 1954 and safely landed in Brazil 35 years later, in 1989.
Fact: No such incident has occurred. There are no records of any airline called “San Diego Airlines” or of a flight numbered 513 disappearing in 1954. We found that the viral story of San Diego Flight 513 is a work of fiction, first published on 14 November 1989 by a US-based tabloid called Weekly World News (WWN), where it was referred to as Santiago Flight 513. Weekly World News is known for publishing fictional content. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search. However, our search yielded no credible reports supporting this claim. It is obvious that major air accidents typically attract media attention, yet this “disappearance” was not reported by any reputable news outlets in either the 1950s or 1989. Furthermore, we found no operational airline named “San Diego,” nor have any airlines with that name existed in the past. There are no records of any airline called “San Diego Airlines” or a flight numbered 513 disappearing in 1954.
During our search, we found that the story of San Diego Flight 513 was first published on 14 November 1989 by a US-based tabloid called Weekly World News (WWN), where it was referred to as Santiago Flight 513. WWN is known for fabricating farcical stories. A similar tale titled “Riddle of Flight 914: Plane Took Off from New York in 1955 and Landed in Caracas in 1985” was published by WWN on 7 May 1985. However, we found no credible reports of any such incident occurring in New York in 1955.
Furthermore, we conducted a search for more information about Weekly World News (WWN). This search led us to a USA Today news report dated 02 December 2016, which described Weekly World News as a “beacon of shining fake news.” The report further stated, “For nearly 30 years (1979-2007), the sensational tabloid entertained, amused, and baffled its loyal readers with otherworldly accounts of aliens (‘Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby’), Elvis (‘Elvis Is Alive — And Running For President!’), and the ridiculous (‘World’s Smartest Chimp Goes to College’).” We also found additional articles published by prominent news outlets, such as The Washington Post and The Atlantic, which noted that Weekly World News is known for publishing fictional content. Some fictional articles published by Weekly World News magazine can be found here, here and here.
We then visited the Weekly World News (WWN) website, where we noticed a tagline stating, “the world’s only reliable news,” along with a humorous “About” section, further confirming that the tabloid publishes fictional stories.
To sum up, this viral story of San Diego Flight 513 is a work of fiction published in 1989 by the US-based tabloid Weekly World News.
