Seen a dramatic video of a plane crash? Here's how to spot if it's a flight simulation - Featured image

Videos showing dramatic plane crashes regularly get viral on social media. Sometimes, however, they are actually computer-generated scenes from flying simulation programs. But that isn't necessarily obvious when these clips are viewed out of context – for example, while scrolling through social media on a mobile telephone. AFP Fact Bank check shares a few clues to assist you quickly tell the difference between real footage and simulations.

Flight simulation fans frequently record their screens and share dramatic crashes or near-crashes on YouTube or other platforms. But viewers might not always know the context and could believe they are watching real events.

For example, a videoshared on Facebook, titled "Boeing B747 Pilot Did This To Save All Passengers Later on Bird Strike [XP11]", was viewed more than one one thousand thousand times since March 5, 2022.

The nearly vii-minute-long clip shows a Germanwings aeroplane lifting off a runway, then trailing smoke and making an emergency landing.

Screengrab from the video shared on Facebook

It received more 1,200 comments, some of them calling the scene unrealistic or guessing that the video was computer-generated while others believed it was existent and praised the pilot's bravery.

Screengrab showing only a few of the 1,200 comments on the video shared on Facebook

The images are in fact taken from the flying simulator Ten-Plane 11 – known to fans as XP11, which was noted in brackets at the end of the video'due south title.

Some other case: a videoon YouTube, titled "Aeroplane Crash Karachi ++ PIA A320", was viewed more than 1.8 one thousand thousand times since 2020. It shows the crash of a flying begetting the logo PIA, for Pakistan International Airlines.

But if you click to expand the video's description, you'll see there is a disclaimer at the terminate: "All crashes created with: FSX & AFS2 & 10-Aeroplane 11".

These are names of flying simulators. "FSX" is shorthand for Microsoft Flight Simulator Ten and "AFS2" stands for Aerofly FS 2 Flight Simulator.

Realistic imagery

Flight simulator programs can look very realistic. For example, Microsoft Flight Simulator Ten uses real satellite imagery from Microsoft's Bing Maps to generate a virtual world. And across simulators, the planes themselves are finely detailed. Airliners frequently deport the logos of real companies.

"Nosotros of course want the viewers to observe it hard to tell the divergence between the simulation and the real earth," said Scott Phillips, sales and marketing director at the London-based flight simulation company Only Flight, which develops add together-ons to make flight simulators as realistic as possible.

"If information technology'southward easy for them to tell the deviation, we're not doing a good enough chore!" he told AFP Fact Check.

Beyond flying simulators, some video games such as DCS World and Arma 3 likewise characteristic dramatic war scenes with fighter planes. We've debunked some of these as having been shared out of context during various conflicts, including in Afghanistanand Ukraine.

Nonetheless, there are some clues that can help you spot if an air crash video is computer-generated.

Bank check the title and clarification

Flight simulation fans ordinarily include the proper noun of the software that they captured the video from.

They may use shorthand: for example, X-Airplane 11 may become "XP11"; Microsoft Flight Simulator "MFX"; Prepar3D "P3D", and Aerofly FS 2 "AFS2".

The software name might exist institute in the video'due south headline or the clarification below the prune, so always click through to read all the information available.

Circled in crimson, a reference to the flight simulator 10-Plane 11 in the title of a video shared on Facebook

Facebook users sometimes tag the game they are playing merely this is non ever articulate when you're looking at the video within your feed. Click on the post's time or date stamp to view the video on its own; the game tag will appear in the clarification if available.

A game tag circled in cherry-red on a Facebook postal service

You can as well look at the business relationship that posted the video. Its description might indicate that they are flight simulation (oftentimes shortened to "sim") enthusiasts, or more generally reference video games.

Enlarge the video

Expand the viewing window on your phone, computer or tablet to total screen and then y'all tin brand out all the details more than easily.

The bigger the video, the easier information technology will be for you to see if the graphics await computer-generated. Clues that you lot may take missed on a small screen may suddenly become apparent once you see them on a larger one.

Take your fourth dimension

If you only watch a few seconds or skim through the video, you may miss vital elements revealing that it'due south a simulation.

"Spend a petty more time watching, and if you watch the scenery, you lot'll often spot repeated buildings such equally [generic] houses," said Phillips. "When the airplane is in flight, information technology might exist tricky because present the sky and cloud scenery add-ons are pretty astonishing and look life-like. Equally before long every bit you're shut to the ground or landing at an airdrome it'south usually much easier to tell if the footage is existent-globe or simulation."

Count the camera angles

Videos of real airplane crashes are normally filmed past bystanders or security cameras, meaning they are filmed from the ground and from a unmarried angle.

"In our business of preparation pilots, nosotros spend a lot of fourth dimension looking at crashes, and video of actual airplane crashes is shot on either a phone or a security camera, similar a Nest or an Amazon [doorbell] photographic camera," Josh Harnagel, vice president of marketing at Redbird Flight Simulations in Texas, told AFP Fact Check. "They can't bound camera angles around like you could within a simulation engine."

In simulations, the angle might alter from 1 side of the plane to the other, or from below the airplane to to a higher place – as if the video were being filmed from aboard multiple aircraft flight alongside the plane.

You should also exist suspicious if the camera seems to smoothly track the action.

"Real videos are low quality, they're grainy, and the airplane is rarely at the centre of the frame. Accidents aren't shot similar a movie – you lot don't get very good imagery of it," Harnagel  said.

Here'southward a video of a real incident in which a DHL aeroplane skidded off a runway:

Now compare it to a simulation that reenacted the scene:

Heed to the sound

Plow the sound on. If the video was taken past a bystander, you would wait to hear ambient noise from the ground, like people talking or traffic sounds.

"There won't be whatever background noise in a simulation," Harnagel said. "Information technology'll just exist the airplane dissonance."

Await at the shadows

He also noted that shadows in simulations don't look quite similar shadows in real life.

"It's really hard for the simulation engines to practise the shadows really well," he said. "You'll see a shadow, only it does not expect exactly right. They have a real abrupt line, while in real life it's a footling more faded."

Example of a airplane'southward shadow in 10-Aeroplane eleven

Examine the moment of impact

If the plane crashes into the footing or a building, observe how these elements interact. In a simulation, the point of impact often looks very strange.

"Game designers spend a lot of fourth dimension developing the physics for the plane's movements in-flight, but when the planes crash, the physics really break downward considering they don't put a lot of effort into that," Harnagel said. "Things don't move the way you would expect them to movement. In a simulation, when a plane crashes, there is no reaction on the ground – dirt won't fly upwards, buildings won't suspension or anything like that."

Circled in cerise, the moment a simulated plane partially disappears into the footing during a crash scene in X-Plane xi