A video has been circulating on X that claims to show the aerial view from a passenger airplane ship traffic outside the Straits of Hormuz – with the ships purportedly “stranded” after Iran blocked passage to all but approved vessels since 28 February. A number of “update” accounts have reposted the video, spreading this claim further.
With the amount of uncertainty and anxiety surrounding Hormuz built up over the past month, responses to this claim are mixed. While some in the replies and comments argue that the relatively “peaceful” waiting ships bode well, others argue that the number of ships represent the growing issues surrounding shipping routes and global access. In the video, a number of large ships do appear to be anchored and waiting in a body of water. However, looking at the closer at the video sparked a strange sense of familiarity in our minds – is this really the Straits of Hormuz?
The earlier version of this video we could find is from an Instagram reel posted on March 17, which has over 200k likes and 5 million views. While the caption and hashtags do not include of Iran or the Strait of Hormuz, a large number of comments (over 2000) have been left on the post that include Iranian flags, expressions of support for Iran, and assumptions about the location in the video. However, as frequent travellers might have noticed, the scene does also bear striking resemblance to the Singapore Strait – which greets travellers landing at Changi Airport.
Looking closer at the Instagram account, it appears to belong to an ordinary individual who posts about his daily life and travel. The pinned stories on this account show that he took a flight from India to Singapore in March – and the video supposedly showing the Strait of Hormuz is part of this “:flag-in::airplane::flag-sg:” collection of posts. We could find no indication that he has travelled to Iran or the Middle East on rest of the page, and he does not appear to have mentioned the Strait of Hormuz at all.
Further, a scan of other videos showing the view of the Singapore Strait (which is itself an important trading route connecting the Strait of Malacca to the South China Sea) turns up extremely similar visuals.
While the view of the Strait of Hormuz from a plane does not look dissimilar to the view in this video (being that both essentially feature the sea and large ships), all evidence points to the claim video actually depicting the Singapore Strait instead. We give this claim a rating of false.
In the days since this video first began circulating with the incorrect location attribution, we have seen it on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Threads – all similarly mislabelled. We have even seen it used to make opposite claims about the Strait of Hormuz – namely that video proves it has actually been “open every day since February 28” with restricted traffic.
This is a rather startling example of how a single innocent video posted on someone’s Instagram account can be clipped, reposted and intentionally misused to spread certain claims or narratives. It is important to be very wary of claims like these (especially regarding issues such as crisis and conflict) – especially when they might have a plausible video but no firm, reputable source referenced or linked.
