After a major snowstorm hit Munich on Dec. 2, social media users shared footage of a “frozen” airplane they claim was bound for an international climate change conference. But this claim is on thin ice.
A Dec. 2 Facebook video shows a snowy airport tarmac and an ice-and-snow-covered airplane tipped back onto its tail. A fire truck marked “Feuerwehr,” the German word for fire department, is parked next to the airplane.
The video’s caption said, “Heavy snow and ice has frozen jets in Munich bound for Dubai’s global warming conference.”
(Screengrab from Facebook)
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This video was also shared widely on X, where users said it was ironic that a private jet bound for the United Nations’ 28th Conference of the Parties, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, would get stuck in a snowstorm.
Global leaders are meeting in Dubai for COP28, which started Nov. 30, ends Dec. 12 and promotes climate change solutions worldwide. But there’s no evidence this snow-covered airplane was Dubai-bound.
Sequences of letters and numbers are put on all aircrafts for identification purposes. In the video, the letters “OE-HUB” on the airplane’s tail identify the plane as a Cessna Citation X, a type of business jet, operated by the Austrian company Bairline Fluggesellschaft.
The last flight scheduled for this aircraft was Nov. 15 from Antwerp, Belgium, to Munich, the flight tracking website FlightAware shows. This aircraft’s schedule listed no flights to Dubai.
A Dec. 4 Aviation International News report confirmed that this footage showed a Cessna Citation jet that had tipped over at the Munich International Airport because of heavy snow accumulation on the aircraft’s tail.
PolitiFact contacted Bairline and the Munich airport to verify details about the aircraft, but did not hear back.
We rate the claim that a video shows “frozen jets in Munich bound for Dubai’s global warming conference” False.