Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 6/3/2026; Author: Amar Karađuz
What are the claims?
The images show an evacuation flight by Air Serbia following the escalation of the conflict between Israel, the United States, and Iran in February 2026, and an aircraft flying over Iran’s closed airspace.
What are the facts?
An old photograph of an Air Serbia aircraft taking off in Beirut was shared on social media with false claims that it shows a scene from 2026. The image of an aircraft flying over Iran is not authentic.
After Israel and the United States launched a series of attacks on Iran on February 28, 2026, most countries in the Middle East (including Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Israel) closed their airspace to commercial flights. Countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates technically kept their airspace open at the time, but without commercial flights operating.
The ministries of foreign affairs of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro took measures to evacuate their citizens from the region, which was also reported by the media (link, link).
In that context, a photograph began circulating on social media showing an Air Serbia aircraft taking off while a column of smoke rises nearby. Beneath the photograph is a screenshot of an air traffic map over the Middle East region showing a single aircraft flying over Iranian airspace. These posts insinuate that the lone aircraft above Iran is an Air Serbia plane ignoring the danger and the ban on flights over the country.
This collage was shared within a short period in dozens of posts on Facebook (1, 2, 3) and Instagram (1, 2, 3), making it impossible to determine with certainty where it first appeared. One such post was shared on March 4, 2026, with the caption “Serbia saving its citizens.”
In some cases, it was claimed that the image showed an Air Serbia flight from Israel to Belgrade.
Some of these posts received thousands of interactions. The images from the collage were also shared separately on social media. Alongside insinuations that the aircraft belonged to Serbia or that the pilot was Serbian, the radar image showing a plane over Iran’s closed airspace was posted on X on March 3, 2026. The photograph of the Air Serbia aircraft taking off also circulated on social media after the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Evacuations
By March 6, 2026, several evacuation flights had been carried out from the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East, including two Flydubai flights between Dubai and Belgrade on March 3 and 4 (link, link), as well as one Air Serbia flight between Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt and Belgrade on March 4.
Air Montenegro evacuated Montenegrin citizens on March 3, and Croatian citizens were also evacuated that day. On March 6, 2026, Air Serbia sent an Airbus A330 to Dubai to pick up another group of Serbian citizens, but at the time this analysis was published the return flight had not yet been carried out.
However, the photograph of the Air Serbia aircraft taking off and the radar image showing an aircraft above Iran were not created in the context of the escalation of the Middle East conflict in March 2026.
An Image From 2024
The photograph of the aircraft taking off does not show an evacuation after the outbreak of war on February 28, 2026. The image shows an Air Serbia aircraft taking off from Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon. It was taken on October 8, 2024, by photographer Mohamed Azakir. The description of the photograph published by Reuters states that it shows smoke rising from Beirut’s southern suburbs after an attack while an aircraft takes off from Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport.
The photograph was taken in Hadath, Lebanon, during clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
Israeli forces launched a ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on October 1, 2024. During October, Israeli forces also carried out bombings in the capital, Beirut.
The only evacuation flight conducted by Air Serbia after the conflict began on February 28 departed from the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh. It did not fly over Iranian airspace. Another evacuation flight by the company, from Dubai, was announced for March 6.
The Aircraft Above Iran
The radar image of a lone aircraft flying over Iran’s closed airspace is also not authentic. Using the “playback” feature on the FlightRadar24 website, where the image was most likely created, we found that no commercial aircraft following the depicted route flew over Iranian airspace between the start of the conflict on February 28 and March 3, when the earliest post containing the image was shared.
One aircraft without flight data briefly appeared in Iranian airspace on March 2. However, because its route was illogical and it changed its callsign during the flight, FlightRadar24 notes that it most likely had a malfunctioning or improperly configured transponder, meaning the radar data displayed was inaccurate.
On the same day we also observed a lone U.S. Air Force aircraft, but in Iraqi airspace, which is also closed to civilian aviation.
A detailed analysis showed that the screenshot of the radar display of an aircraft above Iran could not have been taken in late February or early March 2026. The key indicator is the position of the boundary between day and night (the so-called terminator), visible on the map as a gradient shadow from darker (night) to lighter (day). Based on the location of this day-night boundary in the screenshot, it can be concluded that the image shows morning hours in Iran’s local time. The position of the terminator changes throughout the year depending on the Earth’s position (the tilt of its axis) relative to the Sun. It can also be observed that the day-night boundary in the image falls at a sharp angle relative to the equator.
At the end of February and the beginning of March, the day-night boundary is almost vertical relative to the equator.
Since FlightRadar24 displays real-time data, including the exact position of the day–night boundary, it is clear that the screenshot in the analyzed posts could not have been taken in early March 2026.
Additionally, an identical radar screenshot was already posted on Instagram in 2025, at that time accompanied by claims that it showed a North Korean aircraft above Iran.According to the facts above, posts sharing the collage of images of an Air Serbia aircraft and the radar image of a lone aircraft over Iran, along with claims that they show an evacuation from the Middle East after the escalation of the conflict in March 2026, are rated as spreading fake news. The same assessment applies to individual posts sharing these images with the same claims.
