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After a China Eastern Airlines passenger jet carrying 132 people crashed into a mountainside in the southern Chinese region of Guangxi on March 21, 2022, a video circulated in news reports and social media posts that claimed it shows smoke billowing from the crashed airliner. But a government spokesperson in eastern China's Shanghang county -- about 500 miles from the crash site -- said the video actually shows a hillside fire that broke out one day before the China Eastern jet tragedy. A man from Shanghang county separately told AFP the video contains bystanders discussing a fire caused by a careless tomb sweeper, and shared evidence that it circulated before the jet crash. The crash site of the China Eastern Airlines plane, reads this tweet written in simplified Chinese-language on March 21, 2022. It has been viewed more than 8,000 times. The 51-second video shows smoke billowing from a fire on a hillside. Several people can be heard speaking in the background. A screenshot taken on March 23, 2022 of the misleading Twitter post. The video circulated online as aviation authorities in China tried to determine why a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 nosedived into a mountainside near Wuzhou in southern China's Guangxi region on March 21. A black box from the crashed jet was recovered on March 23, but no survivors were found as investigators scoured the rugged terrain for clues. The video was also shared alongside a similar claim on Twitter here; as well as on Facebook; Weibo , US social media site Gettr , and Douyin , the Chinese version of TikTok. The video was also included in reports by the Chinese news app Jiupai News ; Indian newspaper The New Indian Express ; Taiwanese broadcaster Sanlih E-Television ; and US broadcaster Fox News. But the video has been shared in a misleading context. Hillside fire Keyword searches found this report by Chinese newspaper Modern Express Post that states the video shows a fire near Longyan, a city in Fujian province, some 500 miles (800 kilometres) away from the crash site in Wuzhou. A government spokesperson for Longyan's Shanghang county told AFP the video shows a hillside fire in a local village on March 20. The online video does not show the plane crash incident, it actually shows a hill fire on March 20 from a village in Guanzhuang She Nationality township, Shanghang county, the spokesperson said. The fire was caused by tomb-sweeping -- a custom of cleaning ancestors' graves that involves burning joss sticks or paper offerings -- according to the government spokesperson. AFP located a man surnamed Lin, who said he is from a village close to the site of the blaze in Longpai village. He sent an earlier version of the video along with a screenshot of the clip being shared in a local community WeChat group on March 20. It can be seen below with the timestamp highlighted in red by AFP: Below are two screenshot comparisons of the video in the misleading posts (left) and the video shared on WeChat on March 20 (right): Screenshot comparisons of the video in the misleading posts (left) and the WeChat video (right) AFP located the village here on Baidu maps. It shows a similar hilly terrain to the area shown in the video. Lin told AFP that the people heard speaking in the video were using his local Hakka dialect. According to a transcript he provided to AFP, one of the speakers appears to blame the fire on someone being careless while tomb sweeping. He translated one woman's comments as: The fire is so strong! That person who went there for tomb sweeping is really a disaster. [They are] so careless [to have caused the fire]! AFP debunked other posts here that falsely claimed to show the final moments of the China Eastern Airlines jet. Correction: This article was updated on March 25 to clarify the man surnamed Lin is from Shanghang county.
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