Air India plane crash sparks spate of posts sharing misrepresented content
Among the genuine videos that were circulating after the crash, some items immediately raised suspicion
CLAIM
Amid a huge amount of content being shared from near the site of a deadly Indian air crash on June 12, images and videos were shared purporting to show the situation inside the plane as it crashed and the aircraft itself after the incident.
BACKGROUND
An Air India flight bound for London crashed shortly after taking off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, June 12.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was carrying 242 people, including 230 passengers and 12 crew members. Of the passengers, there were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals and one Canadian. As the recovery effort developed throughout the day, news reports said one British national survived the crash.
The police chief told BBC News that as of early evening local time, 204 bodies had been recovered. It was not clear yet if they were all people on the plane, and the impact on passersby on the ground was not yet known. However, the aircraft did hit a building used as accommodation for trainee doctors.
At least 50 medical students were taken to hospital, according to the FAIMA Doctors Association, which urged people to donate blood.
Immediately after reports emerged of the crash, footage and images were shared by local people showing clouds of black smoke rising into the sky. One viral clip purported to show the moment the plane came down.
Eyewitness footage and official emergency service pictures showed a part of the aircraft sticking out of a building complex, as crowds gathered around in the aftermath of the crash. People in the streets filmed burnt debris as rescue workers rushed past with stretchers.
The parent company of Air India, Tata Group, said it will provide 1 crore rupees (equivalent to about €100,000) to the families of each person who died in the crash, and also pledged to cover the medical expenses of those injured.
In among the genuine videos that were circulating after the crash, some items immediately raised suspicion. One such clip which was widely shared purported to have been filmed from inside the plane as it crashed. It was reshared dozens of times on X with similar variations of the same caption: “Heartbreaking: A Facebook Live video has surfaced reportedly moments before the tragic #planecrash near Ahmedabad, Gujarat.”
Another post over on Facebook giving an update on the news story included an image of a broken-up plane on a runway, with a column of black smoke rising from the scene.
The uploader wrote a long status on the particulars of the “major accident” and also included another image of a plane seemingly embedded in a building. The two images were clearly not from the same crash.
METHOD
The video that was being shared with the claim that it was livestreamed on Facebook from inside the plane appeared on dozens of X accounts. Many of the early posts were flagged with a Community Note on X. However, the video continued to be widely shared hours later by other accounts.
Through the Community Notes, we were able to find an earlier version of the video posted by the Hindustan Times in early 2023, when a plane crashed in Nepal.
That Yeti Airlines crash took place on January 15, 2023, killing everyone on board, including the man seen in the clip.
We were also independently able to find news coverage of the man’s final moments in 2023 via a Google Lens reverse image search. In addition to this, it is also possible to debunk claims this showed an Air India flight by comparing colour scheme and branding of the interior of the plane. For example, here is the inside of an Air India plane, and here is the inside of a Yeti Airlines plane. The type of aircraft involved in any crash would also give an indication as to the seat layout and size of the cabin.
In the Facebook post that featured two images, the picture of the plane crashed into the building looked more genuine. The plane was the correct colour for Air India, and the picture had a grainy processed quality that resembled digital zoom on a smartphone.
Despite appearing to have been captured from further away, the other picture was very clear, and the smoke looked soft. The image had a high-resolution airbrushed effect that resembled AI-generated images we have seen in the past. We also already knew that the plane that crashed on June 12 did not come down on a runway; it crashed soon after takeoff outside the airport, and struck a building when it crashed.
On close inspection of the image, we could see a logo in the bottom right corner for Meta AI. This confirmed our suspicions that the image was generated by AI.
It’s worth noting that it would be easy for an uploader wishing to deceive viewers about a picture to crop that section of the image out. With the quality of AI-generated images and videos improving at breakneck speed, they represent a key challenge for fact-checkers and all journalists in the new media landscape.
RATING
The video shot from inside a plane is at least two years old old and appears to have been filmed during the Yeti Airlines crash in Nepal in 2023. The image shared on Facebook was created using Meta AI, and details in it do not match the real crash site.
SOURCES
BBC News (2025). Air India crash latest: At least 200 killed in Air India plane crash as one British passenger reportedly survives. [online] [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: #WATCH | On MBBS students injured in Ahmedabad aeroplane crash, Dr. Rohan Krishnan, Chief Patron, FAIMA Doctors Association, says… [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: We are deeply anguished by the tragic event involving Air India Flight 171. [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Heartbreaking: A Facebook Live video has surfaced reportedly moments before the tragic #planecrash near Ahmedabad [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Crash d’avion à Ahmedabad : une vidéo en direct aurait été diffusée sur Facebook avant l’accident. [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
Facebook.com. (2025). Video. [online] Available at: #NepalPlaneCrash | A video has surfaced on social media in which Sonu Jaiswal (passenger) is purportedly seen shooting a Facebook live onboard ATR 72. [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
Facebook.com. (2025). Facebook. [online] Available at: Disinfecting our aircraft [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
Koen (2024). Air India Economy Class: My Impressions After Four Flights. [online] Paliparan. [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
Facebook.com. (2025). Dev Gurjar – बड़ी खबर: अहमदाबाद से लंदन जा रहा एयर इंडिया का… [online] [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].
Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News (2023). Nepal plane crash: Pilot didn’t report anything untoward, official says. [online] [Accessed 12 Jun. 2025].