Social media posts misidentify immunologist as someone who died in Aug. 9 plane crash in Brazil

Sixty-two people, including some medical professionals, died when a domestic flight crashed Aug. 9 in Brazil. As organizations and institutions posted messages of condolence, some social media users circulated a video of a cancer researcher, inaccurately claiming he was one of the crash victims. 

"This man was on that plane!" one viral post said. "He discovered a way to program regulatory T-cells to attack tumors. A huge breakthrough." 

The post claimed the breakthrough "showed 90% remission in the lab," was "moving to animal trials," and could end cancer. "And his plane just exploded," the post said. "Dr. Leo Ferreira."

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Conspiracy theorist and conservative commentator Alex Jones, who has 2.7 million X followers, amplified the claim Aug. 12 when he reshared a similar X post with the comment: "Very suspicious." The version of the claim that was reshared on Facebook was shared originally on X, where it has been viewed more than 4 million times.  

The posts misidentified Leonardo Ferreira, an immunologist, as one of the plane crash victims.

(Screenshot from Facebook.)

Leonardo Ramos Ferreira, the person shown in the posts’ videos, is not dead. 

"I am alive and well working in my laboratory at the Hollings Cancer Center," in Charleston, South Carolina, Ferreira told PolitiFact in an email. 

Ferreira is a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina in the Hollings Cancer Center.

"I was not on the plane that crashed in Brazil on Friday, tragically killing all its passengers, including cancer doctors traveling to a conference," he said, referring to news reports about some of the victims. "I offer my sincere condolences to their family, friends, colleagues, and patients. I am also thankful for all the people who worried and have reached out to make sure I am alive."

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I AM ALIVE. I was not on the plane that went down in Brazil on Friday. My condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and patients of the passengers that passed. Thank you to everyone who reached out to check if I was safe. pic.twitter.com/ULntlgZBYw

— Leonardo Ferreira (@enhancerleo) August 13, 2024

Leonardo Ferreira’s name was not included on the airline Voepass’ list of passengers and crew members on the plane that crashed.

The misidentification might be partly because he and one of the victims had a common surname. 

The Associated Press and local news reports said Dr. José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, a recently retired doctor and professor, was among the passengers who died in the crash. (Voepass’ list of passengers included "Jose Fer.")

The Brazilian College of Radiology and Imaging Diagnosis published a short statement about José Roberto Leonel Ferreira’s death. 

"It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dr. José Roberto Leonel Ferreira," read the statement, which identified him as a "full member" of the organization. "Owner of the Dr. Leonel Ferreira Imaging Center, opened 27 years ago in Cascavel, he was among the 62 occupants of the Voepass plane that crashed on Friday afternoon in Vinhedo."

The statement also said José Roberto Leonel Ferreira had been an assistant professor at Unioeste. 

Unioeste, also known as The State University of Western Paraná, posted a statement of condolence that mentioned José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, too. It described him as a recently retired professor and owner of an imaging center in Cascavel, Brazil, according to Google’s translation. 

The deadly crash’s cause is undetermined and under investigation, but PolitiFact searched using Google and the Nexis news database and found no reliable reports showing that authorities believed the incident was an intentional attack or linked to any one person — cancer researcher or otherwise — being aboard.

A Facebook post claimed that "Dr. Leo Ferreira," a cancer researcher shown in a video clip, was on the plane that crashed Aug. 9 in Brazil.  

The video showed Leonardo Ferreira, an immunologist who works at the Medical University of South Carolina. Ferreira did not die in the plane crash. He rebutted such claims in an Aug. 12 X post, days after the crash.

Dr. José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, a professor and radiologist with an imaging center in Brazil, died in the crash, according to news reports.

We rate this claim False. 

Editor’s Note: Google Translate was used throughout the research of this story to translate websites and statements into English.