Fiery Jet Photo A Fake

Editorial Staff

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The publisher mistakenly reported an American Airlines MD-80 engine fire, acknowledging they were "royally had."
The photos depicting the engine fire were later discovered to be Photoshopped fakes.
A vigilant reader found the original, unedited photos on a French website, revealing the deception.

See a mistake? Contact us.

We’ve been royally had, and the only saving grace is that so have thousands of others. Our thanks to an adroit reader who found the photos of the American Airlines MD-80 from the original series, sans fire and smoke, on a French Web site that carried a fairly lively discussion (as far as our high school French could determine) on our faux pas.

The original photo was taken by Tim Lane and appeared on Airliners.net.

CLICK FOR LARGE IMAGES EACH IMAGE WILL OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW

original photo Tim Lane	PhotoShopped “fake”