A video has been widely circulated on social media, claiming to depict the moment the helicopter carrying Herbert Wigwe, the late CEO of Access Holdings Plc, and others crashed.
The video, shared by Naija2023_election on Instagram, as archived here, shows an aircraft engulfed in flames after crashing to the ground, with a helicopter hovering in the air at the accident scene.
Accompanying the video are pictures of Wigwe and his family, with the caption, “sad one.”
The Labour Party gubernatorial aspirant in Edo state, Stephen Osemwegie, who recently declared his withdrawal from the race, also shared the video on his X handle with the caption, “Major National Disaster! Crash site of Access Bank CEO’s helicopter”.
The same footage was also shared by multiple users and blogs across Instagram, YouTube, and X, as archived here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Saturday, February 10, 2024, Wigwe was reportedly killed in a helicopter crash along with his wife, son, and a former group chairman of the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, Abimbola Ogunbanjo. The helicopter crash occurred near the California-Nevada border in the United States of America.
Claim: Viral video shows the moment a helicopter carrying Herbert Wigwe crashed
Verification
The CDD War Room checked to verify the viral video and here is what we found. We observed that the crashed aircraft engulfed in flames in the viral video is not a helicopter. We further traced the source of the video and found that it was a crash accident involving a private jet in Florida.
Daily Mail reported the jet crash on Friday, February 9, 2024. According to the report, the private jet smashed into a Florida freeway while flying from Ohio to the Sunshine State, killing two people. This was also reported by multiple media outlets as can be seen here, here, and here.
Verdict: FALSE
The CDD War Room can confirm that the viral video shows the moment a private jet flying from Ohio to Fort Lauderdale crashed on Naples highway in Florida. Multiple media outlets reported the crash on Friday, February 9, 2024.