Published 11th Feb, 2024

On Friday, a helicopter transporting Hebert Wigwe, the CEO of Access Holdings, crashed in the United States of America.

FIJ detailed how the business tycoon lost his life alongside five travellers, including members of his immediate family, near Interstate 15 in Southern California’s Mojave Desert.

Meanwhile, a trending video on X, the microblogging platform formerly known as Twitter, and WhatsApp, is being widely circulated as the scene of the fatal crash that led to Wigwe’s shocking death.

Sabina Nkiru, a legal practitioner with a significant number of online engagements, posted a video with the caption that “it was the crash site of Access Bank CEO’s helicopter”.

Video said to show scene of crash involving Wigwe

Stephen Osemwegie, another popular X user and Labour Party gubernatorial aspirant in Edo State, later shared the footage with a similar caption.

Thousands of views have accumulated on these posts and they have garnered a plethora of reposts.

FIJ checked the veracity of the claim in a bid to set the record straight.

CLAIM: A video in circulation shows the scene of the helicopter crash that led to the death of Wigwe and others.

VERIFICATION: FIJ scoured the internet for the origin of the clip and found that it was an accident involving a private passenger jet that crash-landed on a busy Florida highway and collided with two vehicles on the ground on Friday.

A Reuters report says that the Bombardier Challenger 600 business jet, which flew from Ohio and was on its way to Naples Airport, killed two people after the pilot radioed that the aircraft’s turbofan engines failed.

FAA’s statement || Twitter

The report was confirmed by ABC News, which has a full video on its YouTube page. FIJ also obtained a statement about the incident on the official page of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on X.

VERDICT: The video in circulation does not show the scene of Wigwe’s helicopter crash.

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