CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab which recaps the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate September 30, 2022
This week, CheckMate investigates whether Qantas passengers should be worried by online images of aeroplane wings plastered with tape.
We also fact check Peter Dutton's defence spending claims, and pick apart much-hyped rumours of a Chinese military coup.
Is Qantas patching up planes with duct tape?
A viral photo appearing to show a Qantas plane with a heavily taped wing — which some online users suggested may have posed a safety risk — is not what it seems, CheckMate has found.
The photo, which shows a plane wing covered in patches of what at first glance appears to be duct tape, was posted to Twitter last week by Australian opera singer David Wakeham and has since been shared widely on other social media platforms including Reddit and Facebook.
"When choosing your favourite airline, choose wisely," Mr Wakeham captioned his photo. "@Qantas Profits before safety."
But the tape pictured — known as speed tape — is used regularly in the aviation industry and, in this case, was likely applied to cover peeling paint.
According to researchers from the Information Futures Lab (formerly known as First Draft News), the plane pictured was most probably a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
They pointed CheckMate to a video of the wing of an Etihad-operated 787-9 to illustrate the similarities with the wing pictured in the Twitter post.
As for why the wing was taped, the researchers alerted CheckMate to a 2020 document issued by the US Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
According to the document, Boeing had notified the FAA that certain model 787 jets were "prone to paint adhesion failures due to Ultra Violet (UV) ray damage".
Recent news reports have suggested that peeling paint on the wings of Boeing 787-9 aircraft may be a widespread issue, with a spokeswoman for Air New Zealand telling online publication Stuff that it was a global problem.
A spokesperson for Boeing, meanwhile, told aviation industry publication Simple Flying that the peeling paint was "a cosmetic issue only".
"[T]he peeling does not affect the structural integrity of the wing, and does not affect the safety of flight," the spokesperson said.
And while the FAA document does warn of a potential paint-related safety risk to airline personnel when using "vacuum-type fall arrest protection systems" on aircraft wings, it did not flag any risk to passenger safety.
Similar paint issues have also plagued aircraft manufacturer Airbus, whose A350 jets have been the subject of legal action by Qatar Airways.
Importantly, however, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has said it was aware of the paint peeling but would not be taking any action against the manufacturer as there was "no indication that the paint and protection degradation affects the structure of the aircraft or introduces other risks".
In a statement, a spokesperson for Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) told CheckMate it too was "aware of paint peeling or being removed on some aircraft for various reasons".
"Any repairs, including temporary tape repairs, must be made in accordance with approved maintenance instructions," the spokesperson said in an email.
"Approved temporary repairs do not pose a safety risk to passengers."
Images and videos depicting tape being used on planes have circulated on social media alongside suggestions of safety risks before.
But as Air New Zealand head of engineering Grant Crenfeldt explained in 2016, the tape used in aircraft repairs is actually "FAA-approved speed tape".
"Speed tape, or aluminium tape, is what we use for interim repairs on our aircraft," Mr Crenfeldt states in a video published by the New Zealand Herald.
"It's never used in a structural sense, only for weather and aerodynamic sealing."
Speed tape's use in repairing paint peeling issues on Boeing 787 Dreamliners appears to have been confirmed by Qantas subsidiary Jetstar earlier this month, following concerns raised by a passenger who shared a photo of patchy tape work similar in appearance to that seen in the Twitter photo.
As per a 9News report, paint peeling was a "common occurrence", according to a spokesperson for Jetstar, and did not pose a safety risk to passengers.
Jetstar was reportedly preparing all its Boeing 787 planes for repainting, a process which takes several weeks per plane.
According to the Information Futures Lab, Qantas does have Boeing 787-9s in its fleet, but as per a 2020 report from Simple Flying so too do 53 other airlines.
An analysis of the photo posted to Twitter, undertaken by CheckMate, suggests it was taken at the Qantas Domestic Terminal at Melbourne Airport.
Qantas declined to comment when asked if the plane pictured belonged to the airline, but a report from Yahoo News earlier this week stated: "Yahoo News Australia reached out to the airline the passenger said he was travelling with, but it said it did not believe the image was of one of their planes."
Mr Wakeham did not respond to questions.
Unfounded Chinese coup claims take flight
With all eyes seemingly on the Kremlin, social media was abuzz last week with unfounded claims that a coup was unfolding further east.
"9,000 flights cancelled over China, reports of military vehicles converging on the capital, and reports of senior officials being imprisoned," wrote one Twitter user. "That's what regime change looks like under authoritarianism, kids."
"Most of the flights in China have been cancelled after #XiJinping house arrest," another user claimed.
However, as numerous reporters and analysts swiftly pointed out, online flight tracker data showed no significant changes in activity above China over the previous several days.
Some users shared their own screenshots from flight-tracking tools to argue the skies had indeed fallen quiet but, according to India's Business Today magazine, these were taken "during the wee hours" or showed sparsely populated areas of China where few planes fly.
Fact checkers with Associated Press also found that while roughly 6,000 flights were cancelled on September 21, this was "in line with the high level of daily cancellations that China has recorded … since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic".
On the ground, German newspaper Der Spiegel's China correspondent took the chance to sightsee around the capital, finding that, among other things, Tiananmen Square was swarming with plain clothes "thugs" — more commonly known as tourists.
Meanwhile, footage of a warehouse explosion supposedly captured over the weekend in Beijing was also circulated as evidence of a coup.
That video, however, was filmed in the city of Tianjin in 2015, according to fact checkers at Reuters.
Separately, Snopes found no evidence to support claims that President Xi Jinping had been placed under house arrest by China's military.
Speculation had been fueled by Mr Xi's absence from official duties after returning from a summit in Uzbekistan, which some observers put down to a simple case of quarantining.
The house arrest rumour was pushed by one prominent Chinese author associated with the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, who also tweeted unverified footage purporting to show an 80 kilometre procession of "#PLA military vehicles heading to #Beijing on Sep 22".
Although she backtracked somewhat — later labelling rumours of Mr Xi's arrest as "unconfirmed" and adding that she had since been told they were "not true" — her original post remains online, where it has garnered more than 9,000 shares.
The rumours arose during a sensitive time: namely, the lead up to next month's five-yearly Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where it is expected Mr Xi will secure a rare third term as CCP General Secretary, and possibly lifetime rule.
In recent weeks, several high-ranking Chinese officials have also been jailed for corruption and "being disloyal to Mr Xi", the BBC has reported.
Some long-time China watchers conceded that a coup was never entirely out of the question, but remained unconvinced by what they had seen.
Drew Tomson, a former US defence official, suggested the rumours may have been part of a "disinformation campaign" against the Chinese government fuelled by Falun Gong.
In any event, the story was put to rest on Wednesday when Mr Xi appeared in public to attend an exhibition.
Peter Dutton incorrect on defence spending
Not for the first time, the Coalition has attacked Labor's record on defence spending while talking up its own.
But as RMIT ABC Fact Check found this week, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was incorrect to simultaneously claim that the Coalition had lifted spending to "record" levels while Labor had let it fall "to the lowest level since 1938".
As a share of the economy (GDP), defence spending under the previous Labor government fell to 1.52 per cent, which was indeed the lowest level since 1938-39 (1.5 per cent).
However, by this measure, spending under the Coalition was well short of "record" levels. It peaked at 2.04 per cent, compared with 34 per cent in 1942-43.
Mr Dutton's claim also fell flat when assessed in real dollar terms.
Certainly, spending was higher in 2020-21 — the Coalition's last financial year in government — than in any year that came before.
But the same could be said of most years during Labor's term, throughout which spending remained higher than in any year under the Howard government.
The politics of empty
Pro-Labor social media accounts went into overdrive this week, as a mis-captioned photo of Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume was shared across multiple platforms.
A screenshot of Senator Hume's appearance on the ABC's Insiders program was overlaid with a quote attributed to her: "We don't have policies, we are in opposition. Our job is to oppose everything and offer nothing."
But part of that quote is false, RMIT FactLab has found.
During the interview, Senator Hume was asked whether the Coalition supported reinstating the full fuel excise (tax), which had been temporarily halved by the Morrison government due to cost of living pressures.
She responded: "It is our policy. It was our policy. We don't have policies. We are in opposition; we're not in government."
At no point during the interview did she use the phrase, "our job is to oppose everything and offer nothing".
However, her comment that "we don't have policies" appears to have been damaging enough, attracting significant media attention in the days following the interview.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
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