Video of cabin crew boarding flight predates Air India disaster

Published on June 25, 2025 at 11:28
3 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka

A video of flight attendants waving to camera as they board an aeroplane was filmed prior to a flight from Saudi Arabia, contrary to posts claiming it shows the crew of an Air India jet that crashed moments after takeoff from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The clip circulated days before the crash, which killed all but one of the 242 people on board, and the flight attendant who filmed it has since posted about it being falsely shared online.

"Did they know they were going on their final journey while they wave?" reads Sinhala-language text on a Facebook video shared on June 13, 2025.

It shows an Air India flight attendant filming herself and cabin crew members as they wave to camera while walking through an air bridge.

Additional superimposed English text on the video says "RIP" and "12 crew members".

Screenshot of false Facebook post taken June 23, 2025 with a red X added by AFP

The video was also shared in similar posts on Facebook and TikTok from Sri Lanka, as well as India and Malaysia.

It circulated a day after an Air India flight bound for London crashed shortly after takeoff on June 12, ploughing into a residential area of India's Ahmedabad city (archived link).

All but one of the 242 people on board were killed; as were at least 38 people on the ground (archived link).

The video circulating online, however, does not show the Air India cabin crew on board that flight.

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip posted on Instagram on June 9 by a user who regularly posts about being an Air India flight attendant.

The clip, which was also posted on the user's Threads account, is captioned in Hindi, "Motivation before the ULH flight" while superimposed text reads "All the hardworking crew aboard the same flight" (archived link).

ULH is the airport code for the airport in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the June 9 Instagram video (right)

After her video resurfaced online, the user posted a request on June 14 for friends and family to report accounts that were falsely sharing it (archived link).

"How will our families feel if they see that we are not alive. How can someone do this without information." reads part of her post.

Screenshot of the user's Instagram post on June 14, 2025

Moreover, the user commented below the post: "God is very kind. I'm absolutely fine."

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to the Air India crash.

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