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Digital artwork has frequently been passed off on social media as dramatic images of disasters. In one recent example, an image appearing to show an airplane crashing onto a suspension bridge has been shared globally in posts that falsely portrayed it as a genuine incident “caught on camera”. It was actually created by a Canada-based digital artist and published online in November 2009.
“This isn’t a MOVIE, it’s real life. Thread of horrific plane crashes caught on camera (Don’t open if you are scared of flying),” read the caption of a Facebook post published by a Thai user on October 24, 2024.
The post shared an image appearing to show a large commercial aircraft the moment it crashes onto a suspension bridge, with several cars driving towards the aircraft.
The image was also shared alongside similar claims in posts written in English, Indonesian, Urdu, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.
Comments showed that some users believed that the photo was taken from a real-life event.
“I can’t believe this scene is real!” one X user wrote.
“Wow, that’s some intense real-life drama!” said another.
However, the image is actually an illustration created by a digital artist — not a genuine photograph of an aviation disaster.
Digital artwork
A reverse image search on Google found the image shared on an Instagram post that credited a digital artist named Steve McGhee based in Ontario, Canada (archived link).
“His illustrations look like scenes from of a Hollywood disaster movie,” part of the caption said.
Using further keyword searches, AFP found the same image shared on November 26, 2009 with the title “All Is Lost” on McGhee’s Behance page — a popular online portfolio site for artists (archived links here and here).
McGhee’s signature is visible in the bottom left-hand corner of the image — matching his signature in other artwork here and here (archived links here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the false Facebook post (left) and McGhee’s artwork on Behance (right):
Although McGhee’s official website is no longer active, a keyword search found an archived version on Wayback Machine which included the same artwork under the title “All is Lost”.
Below is a screenshot of the archived version of McGhee’s former website with “All Is Lost” artwork highlighted in red rectangle by AFP:
All is Lost won an award at a California digital arts exhibition in 2011 (archived link).
The artist also published other artwork portraying disasters, such as here and here (archived links here and here).
Other fact-checking websites such as Snopes and Lead Stories have debunked misinformation related to the same photo (archived links here and here).
AFP has previously debunked digitally created images falsely linked to disasters here and here.
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