The pilot is thought to have been flying an F-16 plane (PA)

Video shows pilot over a US Air Force base

By August Graham, PA
9:14 - October 31, 2023

A video which at the time of writing had been liked 27,000 times and viewed around 1.6 million times by TikTok users shows a pilot in a military plane.

The video was captioned “Gaza right now.”

Evaluation: False

The video shows a US pilot over an air force base in the United States. The video was previously uploaded to the internet in January 2022.

The facts

The patches visible on the pilot’s uniform appear to be similar to those used by members of the US Air Force’s F-16 Viper demonstration team.

The team is based at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, in the United States.

Satellite imagery seen on Google Maps of Shaw Air Force Base clearly shows the same runway and surrounding landscape as can be seen from the plane in the footage.

The same video was posted on January 30 2022 by an account on X, previously Twitter, which claims to belong to a US air force instructor pilot called Maj Garret Schmitz.

That video is captioned: “Takeoff from my practice this week. We will announce the new pilot in early March once they certify. Until then, I have to stay current in the demo, which means flying it at least once per week.”

Links

Video shared on TikTok (archived post and video)

Picture showing patches on US Air Force pilot (archived)

Satellite view of Shaw Air Force Base (archived)

Video on Twitter from January 30, 2022 (archived post and video)

Twitter account of Maj Garret Schmitz (archived)

Profile of Maj Garret Schmitz (archived)

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