Biden did not fall down airplane stairs while disembarking from a flight in Poland
FILE - President Joe Biden arrives at a military airport in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Social media users shared a video of people deplaning Air Force One and a person falling down the stairs, falsely claiming it was Biden. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
CLAIM: Video shows President Joe Biden falling down the stairs of Air Force One while disembarking from a flight in Poland.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The person shown taking a spill while coming down the steps of the aircraft at Chopin Airport in Warsaw is not Biden. Other footage and photos from his arrival in February show Biden using a different exit and walking down the stairs with no issues.
THE FACTS: Biden arrived in Warsaw the evening of Feb. 20 after an unannounced trip to Ukraine, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and spent more than five hours in Kyiv. The next day, social media users began sharing a video of people deplaning Air Force One and a person falling down the stairs, falsely claiming it was Biden.
The video, which appears to be from a TV news report and features a chyron in Polish, is taken from the front of the plane and shows people filing down the stairs as they exit from the rear of the aircraft. One person then slips and slides down the staircase, before people on the tarmac rush to their aid. The chyron identifies the location as Chopin Airport in Warsaw.
“US President Joe Biden fell on the plane stairs shortly after landing in Poland after visiting Ukraine,” read one post sharing the video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday.
The video was also shared widely at the time during Biden’s visit to Warsaw in February. “BREAKING! Biden has landed in the Poland and already fell! Lord have mercy,” read one post on X shared on Feb. 21.
While it is unclear who is shown falling down the steps in the video, it was not Biden. Multiple AP reporters were present at the scene, where they witnessed and photographed Biden’s arrival as he walked down the stairs from the plane without incident.
Video of Biden exiting the plane shows that he disembarked from the front of the aircraft, not the rear as the video on social media shows.
The video also shows Biden walking down the staircase alone, in contrast with the video of the person falling, which shows a line of people walking down the stairs.
On Feb. 21, Biden delivered a speech in Warsaw marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden’s address praised allies in Europe for stepping up over the past year and to send a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” according to AP reporting.
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.