Old visuals misrepresented as Air India crash

Published on June 13, 2025 at 10:44
5 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, Ei SAN, Ara Eugenio, AFP India, AFP Thailand, AFP Philippines

A London-bound passenger jet ploughed into a residential area of India's western Ahmedabad city on June 12, 2025, killing at least 265 people on board and on the ground. Social media was soon awash with misused visuals including old clips that depict a plane crash in Nepal and an incident on a Ryanair flight.

"This is a live video of the plane crash in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, at that time, in which a boy came live on Facebook before the Boeing 787-8 plane crashed, and this accident happened at the same time," says a Hindi-language Facebook post shared just hours after the disaster.

One man aboard the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner miraculously survived the fiery crash, which left the tailpiece of the aircraft jutting out of the second floor of a hostel for medical staff from a nearby hospital (archived link).

The video in the post, which was also shared on X, shows a young passenger inadvertently filming the final moments before the plane he was in crashes.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken June 13, 2025

"Footage Just before the Ahmedabad flight crash," says a TikTok post that shared another clip, showing a cabin filled with smoke.

Another post, written in Burmese and shared on Facebook, contains a picture of a burning aircraft on a runway. "London-bound Indian plane carrying 242 passengers, crashed in Gujarat, many feared dead," the caption reads.

Screenshots of the false posts, taken June 13, 2025

The circulating visuals are unrelated to the Air India tragedy.

A reverse image search of the first video's keyframes led to news reports about a plane crash in central Nepal in January 2023 (archived here and here).

The Yeti Airlines service was flying from Kathmandu to Pokhara, a gateway for religious pilgrims and trekkers, when it crashed on descent. All 72 on board were killed (archived link).

According to Britain's The Guardian newspaper, local police and a close friend of the young man shown in the recording verified his identity and several other individuals in the footage (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the same clip from a 2023 news report

Meanwhile, the second clip has earlier been posted on TikTok on March 16, 2023 with a caption indicating it was taken on-board the Irish no-frills carrier Ryanair (archived link).

The TikTok user indicated the passengers were safe and filmed a separate clip showing himself inside the plane reacting to the commotion (archived link).

The aircraft's interior shown in the falsely shared clip matches a stock image taken inside a Ryanair plane (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and the stock photo of a Ryanair cabin

Finally, the falsely shared picture has earlier been published in multiple news articles about the Jeju Air crash in South Korea on December 29, 2024 (archived here and here).

AFP also distributed the photo. Its caption reads: "In this handout photo provided by the South Korean National Fire Agency, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216 burns after skidding off the runway at Muan International Airport on December 29, 2024 in Muan-gun, South Korea."

The Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 passengers from Thailand when it smashed into a barrier during its landing at Muan International Airport and burst into flames. The impact killed everyone aboard except for two flight attendants plucked from the wreckage (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of a false Burmese post (L) and the picture from an old news report

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