Did Leonardo Ferreira die in a Brazil plane crash in August 2024, as a post on X claimed? No, that's not true: Leonardo Ferreira, the man shown in the video, confirmed to Lead Stories that he is alive and well. Another man with the same last name, retired professor José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, was killed in the crash, according to records.
A version of the claim originated in the post of a video shared on X on August 12, 2024 (archived here). The post asserted that the man speaking in the video was a passenger "on that plane!" -- a reference to Voepass Linhas Aéreas Flight 2283, which crashed in Brazil on August 9, 2024. The post implied that a conspiracy of some sort had led to the death of the man, who had made a "huge breakthrough" in fighting cancer tumors.
The caption with the video read:
This man was on that plane!
He discovered a way to program regulatory T-cells to attack tumors. A huge breakthrough.
- It showed 90% remission in the lab.
- They're moving to animal trials.
- If it works, it basically ends cancer.
And his plane just exploded.
Dr. Leo Ferreira
This is how the video appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Fri Aug. 16 19:18:55 2024 UTC)
In an email to Lead Stories, received on August 16, 2024, the man in the video, immunologist Leonardo Ferreira, wrote that while the video is genuine and accurately reflects his research on a way to reprogram human regulatory T-cells to attack tumors, it falsely implies that he was killed in the Brazil airplane crash in August 2024.
Ferreira wrote:
I am alive and well working in my laboratory at the Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
He continued:
I was not on the plane that crashed in Brazil on Friday, tragically killing all its passengers, including cancer doctors travelling to a conference. I offer my sincere condolences to their family, friends, colleagues, and patients.
Voepass Linhas Aéreas Flight 2283 was a domestic flight scheduled to bring passengers from Cascavel to Guarulhos, Brazil. On August 9, 2024, it crashed for reasons unknown at the time of writing, killing 58 passengers and four crew members, according to a Google-translated page published by the airline (archived here).
On August 12, 2024, Leo Ferreira also issued a public statement on X (archived here), confirming that he was "not on the plane that went down in Brazil."
(Source: X.com/enhancerleo screenshot taken on Sat Aug 17 at 00:42:00 2024 UTC)
Ferreira is a principal investigator of the Ferreira Lab of Designer Immunology (archived here) at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina.
Referring to the claim on X that is the focus of this fact check, Ferreira told Lead Stories that "The post accurately describes my research in that I found a way to reprogram human regulatory T cells to attack tumors."
Below is a side-by-side comparison of the video posted on X (left) and a screenshot of Ferreira's bio on the website (right):
(Source: Lead Stories screenshot compilation of X and Ferreira Lab taken Fri Aug. 16 16:16:16 2024 UTC)
The original version (archived here) of the video shared on X was posted on YouTube on April 10, 2024, and included an introduction in which Ferreira identified himself as a professor based in South Carolina.
The Universidad Estadual do Oeste do Parana in Brazil listed (archived here) a retired professor named José Roberto Leonel Ferreira as having been on the plane that crashed on August 9, 2024. According to a Google translation of the notice, the university wrote:
Professor José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, retired three months ago, has been teaching and doing medical residency at Huop since 2000, and is also the owner of the Dr. Leonel Ferreira Imaging Center in Cascavel and a Radiologist at the Hospital Policlínica Cascavel since 1989. He participated in the research groups on Renal Lithiasis at Unioeste and Dosimetry in ionizing radiation at the Federal Technological University of Paraná.
Below is a screenshot of the headshot included in the university release that identified José Roberto Leonel Ferreira:
(Source: Unioeste screenshot taken Fri Aug. 16 18:16:03 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories also found a list of the people killed in the crash (archived here) that Voepass published. It included a person named "Jose Fer," presumably short for "José Ferreira." Lead Stories contacted the airline and the university to confirm whether this was the same person. We will update this article if we receive a response.
In a press statement (archived here), Voepass warned against frauds and scams associated with the crash.
Other fact check agencies, including Reuters and PolitiFact, also have reviewed this claim.
