AKEED, Aya Khawaldeh

Many Arab and local news websites were quick to publish a story, taken from Israeli media outlets, to the effect that Israeli aircraft had intercepted a Jordanian civilian plane that approached the border on Wednesday, 27 September. The websites made the mistake of reporting information without verifying its truth or contacting official entities in Jordan and the airlines to confirm this information before publishing it. Thus, they considered Israeli media outlets to be a reliable source of information.

News websites ran the story under the headline "Israeli Aircraft or Israeli Warplanes Intercept Jordanian Civilian Plane," quoting the Israeli Yedi"ot Aharonot newspaper and the Hebrew Channel 2 as saying that "two Israeli Air Force aircraft shadowed a Jordanian civilian plane that approached Israeli airspace and warned it against entering, thus forcing it to change course. The Jordanian plane was on its way from Egypt to Jordan."

Other news websites claimed that Israeli fighter aircraft had forced a Jordanian civilian plane to change course, quoting the same source. Many of them reported that it was a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane. Meanwhile, the Times of Israel carried a story, saying that the Israeli Air Force had scrambled jets in a false alarm on the Jordanian border. It explained in the body of the report that "two fighter aircraft were scrambled near the border with Jordan when a low-flying Jordanian plane approached the border. Once they confirmed that it was a civilian plane, the two aircraft returned to base and the Jordanian plane crossed the border." 

Meanwhile, Royal Jordanian Airlines denied that Israeli aircraft had intercepted one of its planes en route from Egypt to Amman on Wednesday evening. It confirmed that "media reports about the Royal Jordanian plane in this connection are absolutely untrue."

Also, the radar center and control towers at Marka, Queen Alia, and Aqaba airports had not observed that any Jordanian civilian plane was intercepted by Israeli fighter jets as of 9:30 pm on Wednesday.

Officially, Mohammed Momani, minister of information and spokesman for the government, told Jordan TV that "the Israeli side is unaware of any report about intercepting a Jordanian civilian plane that approached Israeli airspace. This follows contacts between Jordanian executive institutions and the competent Israeli side."

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) had previously handled such an issue in a previous report, in which local media outlets quoted Israeli media and used it as a source of news. Here, AKEED stresses the importance of taking one"s time before carrying reports that come from external media outlets and the need for depending on reliable sources that have a history of credibility and then attributing information to its sources.