A video from Brazil shows a truck slamming into a helicopter parked at ground level, is being shared with a false claim that the accident happened in Punjab, India. BOOM found that the video is from Brazil, from January 2020, when a truck crashed into a military police helicopter about to take off.
The video shows a truck colliding into the whirling blades of a helicopter, sending debris flying on the road with the truck's cargo toppling over and is being shared it with captions which translates to, "Only in India...Helicopter and truck meet with an accident at Ratan Chowk, Amritsar,"
(Original text: Only in India ...Amritsar ratan singh chowk helicopter naal truck da accident)
An archive of the post is available here.
Users are sharing the video on Twitter with a similar claim. An archive of the post is available here.
Only in India ...Amritsar ratan singh chowk helicopter naal truck da accident.. pic.twitter.com/8ZbbVwhqps
— Chetan Sharma (@chetans1987) July 22, 2020
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is from Brazil when a truck collided with helicopter owned by the military police, leading to injuries to atleast five personnel sitting in the helicopter.
A reverse image search on the video keyframes directed us news reports about the incident from January 18, 2020 stating that the accident occurred in the Brazilian city of Rio Branco.
A search using keywords 'Rio Branco helicopter crash' in Portuguese showed us results from several Brazilian media outlets with articles dating back to January 18, 2020.
The report published on January 18, 2020 quoted Colonel Oliveira, of the Military Police of Acre and said that the helicopter was a part of an operation being conducted in the Belo Jardim area. The reports says, "The helicopter was stopped at a roundabout when the team started the takeoff process. At this point, a truck passing by ended up colliding with the aircraft." The report further states that five people were present in the helicopter, of which two suffered minor injuries while the others managed to escape unhurt.
The accident took place in the Second District of Rio Branco region, and the truck involved was used to transport hospital waste for the State Department of Health, states Globo. The cause of the accident wasn't easy to assess, according to the police.
The government of Acre, the state in which Rio Branco city is located also issued a press release saying that the Harpia 01 helicopter involved in the accident belonged to them. The helicopter was a part of a mission to curb criminal activities in the surrounding regions and was parked at a strategic point that could have access to all neighbourhoods in the city quickly and effectively.
News reports about the incident can be found here and here.
Another video on YouTube, posted by the channel ViralHog, shows the same accidents shot from a different angle. A few words of the audio can be clearly heard, with the help of Google Translate's voice translate option makes it clear that the language is Portuguese.