Clip of fighter jet being shot down is from video game

A dramatic video of a warplane being shot down has been viewed thousands of times on social media, and shared with claims it shows Iranian fighter jets attempting to enter Israeli airspace.

But this isn’t real footage. The video is actually from the military game War Thunder.

The clip was shared on X and Facebook on 14 June with claims that three Iranian fighter jets were destroyed.

We traced the clip to a video posted on YouTube on 7 June, claiming to show the video game War Thunder. This version is much clearer and therefore more obviously computer-generated. The account sharing it regularly posts clips from the game and the end of the clip features the game’s distinctive ‘kill sound’.

A spokesperson for Gaijin Entertainment, which makes the game, also confirmed the footage is from War Thunder.

Iran fired missiles at northern Israel on 7 June, prompting retaliatory strikes from Israel. On 14 June the US reached a preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran.

Although Israel claimed to have shot down an Iranian jet in March, we’ve not seen any evidence of this happening in June.

We have previously fact checked many other video game clips that have been shared on social media with misleading captions saying that they depict real-world events. We’ve written about what to check if you suspect footage purporting to be news may actually be from a video game.

For further advice on how to verify videos before you share them, read our toolkit.