Looks scary, that LiveLeak video you probably saw today of the drone striking the plane’s wing, doesn’t it? Stuff like that is every plane passenger’s worst nightmare. The good news is that it’s totally, verifiably, 100 percent fake.
Here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it. It shows what appears to be a Southwest Airlines-liveried plane going into distress after a flying drone destroys its wing. We aren’t show what happens next, but it’s not a sight any traveler wants to see.
We saw it too, but after doing some checking around, we discovered it’s not real.
FlightClub editor Collin Krum got in touch with Southwest Airlines officials, who said they have no reports of drones hitting any of their aircraft. So that’s out.
Second, if you freeze frame, you can see it doesn’t say Southwest Airlines on the wing — it says Branit.com. As TheNextWeb reported today, that domain belongs to a Kansas City visual effects designer named Bruce Branit. He latter copped to making the video on Twitter:
Looks like he succeeded in getting it viral, too. I’ll give Branit credit for making a cool video that’s pretty convincing, at least at first glance.
I’m just glad it’s not real, because now I have one less thing to worry about on flights.
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.