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No, photo not of plane ‘carrying Christian missionaries’ that crashed with no injuries

A photo shared on Facebook in Kenya shows a battered jet aircraft, broken in two, lying on a dirt road.

The caption reads: “Plane carrying Christian missionaries crashed and no one was injured! We serve a living God!”

It’s been posted elsewhere on Facebook with the same claim: “Plane carrying Christian missionaries crashed and no one was injured.- Milagro.”

But what’s the full story behind the photo?

Plane_False

Photo taken from video of crash

A reverse image search shows the photo first appeared online in May 2018. On 22 May a private jet from the US state of Texas crashed in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras in Central America. 

The image is a screenshot from a video on the accident, uploaded on the Russia Today YouTube channel on the day of the crash.

The BBC reported that six people had been injured. Its report included several photos and a video of the crash site. The tail number of the plane, N813WM, is visible in one of the photos, and it’s the same number on the plane in the Facebook image

Employees of pawn loan company

But the passengers weren’t missionaries. They were employees of the US company EZCORP, a provider of pawn loans that operates in Honduras. EZCORP issued a statement confirming the crash. It was reported by major news outlets, including ABC and the Daily Mail

The Honduras aviation authority’s accident report found there were no fatalities or serious injuries.  

And data from the Aviation Safety Network, a website that collects aviation accident information from official sources, also shows six people were on board.

“The aircraft was destroyed but all occupants survived with minor or no injuries,” the website says.
 


 

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