Did Spain's government use a false helicopter crash tweet to distract from the Valencia floods?

Spain's deadly floods are fertile ground for false information and this time the country's leading news agency EFE is at its centre.

The agency found itself in hot water when it published a breaking news alert on X on 14 November, saying that a helicopter had crashed into Madrid's iconic Torre de Cristal, or Glass Tower, situated in the city's Cuatro Torres business district.

The agency deleted the post three minutes later, but not after it had been seen by thousands of people and shared across social media.

EFE quickly admitted to the error, explaining that a technical issue caused the post to accidentally go out as part of a training exercise for students at the agency.

"We apologise for this mistake to all citizens, and especially to all our customers," it said. "Agencia EFE has taken the necessary technical measures to prevent a similar error from occurring again."

Its president, Miguel Ángel Oliver, said the same, adding that there was no excuse for the error and that he took full accountability.

"Let me say it once again, without ambiguity, without euphemisms: we have made a mistake and I apologise because I take responsibility for it," he said.

Nevertheless, conspiracy theories soon erupted online, claiming that the government encouraged EFE to put out the tweet to distract from its handling of the flooding in Valencia and elsewhere, which has become one of the deadliest natural disasters in Spanish history.

Some social media users pointed to Oliver's links to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — he previously served as his secretary of state for communication between 2018 and 2021.

Nevertheless, there's no evidence that the conspiracy theories are true.

EuroVerify reached out to EFE, which reiterated its previous explanation for the helicopter post. The government has not responded to our requests for information as of the time of this fact check.

The more likely explanation is that the conspiracy theories came about as part of the anger against the central and regional governments for their perceived inaction to the floods, which have claimed more than 220 lives.

Carlos Mazón, the conservative president of the Valencian community, has been slammed for having lunch with a journalist when the floods hit, rather than focusing on the response to the crisis. 

He's conceded that mistakes were made but has ignored calls to resign.

Sánchez meanwhile has faced harsh criticism for not invoking a national state of emergency to wrest control of the situation from local authorities.

Sánchez and Mazón, as well as King Felipe and Queen Letizia, were met with furious crowds on 4 November when they visited the Valencia region to show support for those affected. People hurled mud and jeered at them, calling them "murderers".

The anger was mostly aimed at the prime minister and the Valencian president, who left early amid the chaos for security reasons. The royals stayed behind to engage with the locals.

Politicians on all sides have pointed the finger at who was to blame for the lack of preparedness, fuelling the discontent further.

Another EFE gaffe

Earlier this week, EFE put out another false post on X, this time claiming that Spanish writer Fernando Aramburu had died from a heart attack.

According to reports, the agency was tricked in a hoax by Italian journalist Tommaso Debenedetti, who is infamous for spreading disinformation online.

Tommaso reportedly created an X account that looked similar to that of Tusquets Editores, the publishing house that Aramburu works with, and tweeted the fake news of the writer's death.

EFE quickly seized on the information and published its own breaking news alert, before realising its error, deleting the post seconds later and issuing a correction.

By this time though, many other news outlets had seen the alert and followed suit with their own.

Oliver has once again apologised for the error, saying that EFE's rigour had been "seriously damaged by [their] own mistakes".

"I want to apologise to the media, institutions, organisations and companies that rely on and trust our services," he said.

Oliver said he had called a meeting with EFE's board of directors to introduce measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.