A technology blogger attempting to fool people into believing he had exclusive pictures of the final fatal moments of the Gol Linhas Aéreas Boeing 737-800 that crashed into the Amazon jungle in September has been exposed by eagle-eyed aviation experts.
The Boh Tong blog, which covers a diverse range of topics including "flying, cars, handphones" and the Malay salad dish rojak, posted "impressive photos" of the final moments inside the cabin of the 737-800, which suffered a mid-air collision with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, killing all 154 passengers and crew on board.
Tong claims the photos (below) were taken by one of the passengers in the 737, after the collision and that the photos were retrieved from the camera's memory stick by Brazilian military accident investigators. "In the first photo there is a gaping hole in the fuselage through which you can see the tailplane and vertical fin of the aircraft," says Tong. "In the second photo one of the passengers is being sucked out of the gaping hole," Tong continues.
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However, the pictures were quickly revealed as fakes, having been taken from the hit US ABC television show Lost. A post to the blog points out that the interiors of the Gol aircraft had different design to the one pictured.
The pictures have been exposed previously on Hoax Slayer, a site dedicated to exposing internet myths.
Tong apologised for posting the hoax pictures. It is not the first time Tong has courted controversy as his main blogging activity is revealing the seamier side of his previous career; a senior steward with Singapore Airlines, a choice of topic that has drawn criticism in the city state.
Source: FlightGlobal.com