Flurry of old photos claim to show Angara Airlines plane crash in Russia’s Far East
As details emerge from Russia's fatal plane crash, unrelated images from past aviation disasters are being widely misrepresented across social media
CLAIM: Several photos circulated on social media claim to show the Angara Airlines flight An-24 after it crashed in Russia’s Far East Amur region.
BACKGROUND: A passenger plane by the Siberian Angara Airlines crashed on Thursday, July 24, in the Russian far east’s Amur region as it approached its destination — the remote town of Tynda. The plane was carrying 49 people.
METHOD: Reverse image searches and cross-referencing with Russian reports showed several photos shared on social media originated from other plane crash disasters, one dating back as far as 2010.
RATING: The photos originate from several other plane disasters, including an Air India crash near Ahmedabad Airport on June 12, the Gazpromavia Flight 9608 crash near Tretyakovo Airport in 2024, and an Air India Express crash in Mangalore in 2010.
A plane by Siberian carrier Angara Airlines crashed and caught fire during its descent in Russia’s Amur region on Thursday, July 24, killing all 49 people onboard, according to TASS.
The An-24 flight was approaching the remote town of Tynda when it dropped off the radar and crashed into a mountainous area approximately 15 km from Tynda Airport, Ria Novosti said.
An aerial inspection of the crash site found no sign of life, according to the regional civil defence and fire safety centre cited by TASS.
Several photos were circulated on social media, purportedly showing the crash site. All of them showed a crashed plane on the ground, which raised questions given Russian reports that only an aerial inspection from a helicopter had been possible so far, given the inaccessibility of the crash location.
The above photo showed a lot of vegetation around a crashed plane and was juxtaposed with a video consistent with footage released by Russian authorities showing a helicopter searching the area where the flight went down. Footage published by the Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies, and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters showed a helicopter flying over a wooded, mountainous area and locating the crashed flight.
At first glance, the photo appeared to be genuine; however, a Google Image search quickly returned results showing this precise photo used in news reports on the Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12. One example is the photo used in a June 18 New York Times report.
Above is another example of a photo claiming to have been of the crash but, in fact, showing an Air India plane crash in Mangalore in 2010 that killed 158 people. Here, it was shared by an Indian account on X. It shows ground crews putting out a fire, though it was reported that only an aerial inspection had been possible so far. In the bottom left, a group of dark-skinned men are seen looking on, clearly not consistent with the appearance of people living in the area bordering China where the An-24 flight crashed. The Britannica Encyclopedia website featured a photo showing the same scene on a page listing all major Air India disasters.
Despite these discrepancies, the photo was used in an online news report by the Indian news organisation Wion about the Angara Airlines crash.
The third image seen above was also shared in relation to the Angara Airlines crash on VK. However, a reverse image search showed it shows part of the wreckage of Gazpromavia Flight 9608 on 12 July 2024 near Tretyakovo Airport, southeast of Moscow.
The photo above was used by Mir24 — A Russian TV station. It was used as a headline image in a report about the Angara Airlines crash on July 24, but a reverse image search revealed it actually shows the wreckage from a crash in the same region in 2011. The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archive, a Geneva-based NGO that has been recording aviation accidents since 1990, had this picture among several photos of an Antonov AN-24 crash on August 8, 2011, in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast.
The Mir24 report even credits the image to TASS and the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Amur. However, we have not been able to locate the photo in relation to the current crash on the TASS website.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: The Angara Airlines An-24 plane has… [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: My deepest condolences >.. flight operators need to take more measures to avoid accidents … [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
VK. (2025). Available at: Радар Времени [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
BAAA (2025). Available at: Crash of an Antonov AN-24RV in Blagoveshchensk [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
Britannica (2025). Available at: List of Major Air India Disasters [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
Mir24. (2025). Режим ЧС ввели в Амурской области после крушения Ан-24 [online] [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
New York Times. (2025). Boeing Keeps Low Profile at Paris Air Show as Airbus Announces Deals [online] [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
TASS (2025). No survivors found after search of An-24 crash site in Russia’s Far East [online] [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].
WION (2025). Russian plane crash: ‘Crew error’ might be reason of crash, says report [online] [Accessed 24 Jul. 2025].