&Quot;Boeing&Quot;

Did the Pentagon in May of 2025 approve acquisition of a "Qatari-built jet" to be the next Air Force One? No, that's not true: There is no aircraft manufacturing industry in Qatar that could make a jet of that size. The Pentagon on May 21, 2025 announced it had approved President Trump's plan to accept a Boeing 747 as a…

Did the GOP House Judiciary Committee link to a "Rickroll" video in a tweet promising the "Epstein files?" Yes, that's true: The GOP committee posted a tweet on February 27, 2025, that said, "Breaking: Epstein Files Released," with a link that went to a video of Rick Astley singing the song "Never Gonna Give You Up," a trick known as…

Did the U.S. Justice Department just release the 1998-2004 flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727? No, that's not true: We've had then since early 2015 and have embedded copies of the flight logs in several Lead Stories fact checks. This reporter investigated allegations of Epstein's abuse of young females as a national correspondent for American Media Inc. in January…

Does a viral video authentically show a C-17 Globemaster plane taking off from an aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: The viral clip was copied from a YouTube channel with an explicit disclaimer saying all footage is made "using simulator games." The Globemaster typically needs a runway well over 3,000 feet -- much more than a typical aircraft carrier has…

Did Elon Musk say two Boeing Starliner astronauts died in space, as a social media post implies? No, that's not true: Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were shown conducting a spacewalk nearly a month after the post -- and there's no record of Musk ever having made the statements attributed to him in the social media post. On February…

Did Elon Musk say that he bought Boeing? No, that's not true: Musk did not announce the purchase on X, and Boeing published no such information as of this writing. No information about this supposed post has been reported on the website of any news outlets indexed by Google News. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on…

Does a video captured by a New Jersey resident show a drone spraying something in the sky? No, that's not true: The video showed a commercial Boeing 777 jetliner gradually descending as it nears the end of a transatlantic flight from London to Baltimore. Lead Stories cross-referenced the timestamp and location tag from the original video with flight and weather…

Were two of the airplanes involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack listed as "valid" instead of "destroyed" in FAA records? No, that's not true: The planes involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack that bore tail numbers N591UA and N612UA were listed as destroyed in FAA records reviewed by Lead Stories. What explains the re-appearance of the tail numbers…

Does a video genuinely show former President Donald Trump's plane, Trump Force One, doing a high-speed pass over an airport after the first debate in the 2024 campaign in June 2024, as a post on TikTok claimed? No, that's not true: The video's creator confirmed to Lead Stories that it was "created with flight simulator software." Two commercial airline pilots…

Does a diagram from a patent application for a purported "sun simulator" prove that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is also a sun simulator because of their similarities? No, that's not true: The diagram included in a 2003 patent application is for an "autonomously assembled space telescope" and does not depict a "sun simulator." The James Webb Space Telescope, which…