A video was posted to Liveleak earlier today purporting to show a drone colliding with a Southwest Airlines flight leaving New York and shearing off the tip of its wing. It’s got lots of play on Twitter…but it never happened.
Check the wing closely and you’ll see this URL – www.branit.com – which doesn’t belong to an airline but to a visual effects designer in Kansas City called Bruce Branit.
He tells me he’s “not sure how this blew up like this” and is working on a Making Of video right now. He claims he didn’t post the video to Liveleak, but rather shared it on his company YouTube page. He’s now made it private.
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Although these tweets suggest he had a good idea this might happen…
Making something viral is like fishing. Gotta put something good on the hook. But still no guarantee you're going to catch anything.
— Bʀᴜᴄᴇ Bʀᴀɴɪᴛ (@branitfx) June 22, 2015
For the record, of course it is fake. pic.twitter.com/g7hgsjB8I0
— Bʀᴜᴄᴇ Bʀᴀɴɪᴛ (@branitfx) June 23, 2015
Read next: Rise of the ambulance drones
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