Fact Check: Viral Video Falsely Linked to Air India Ahmedabad-London Crash Shows Hong Kong Airport
Air India cancelled its Ahmedabad–London flight (AI-159) on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, attributing it to aircraft
Air India cancelled its Ahmedabad–London flight (AI-159) on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, attributing it to aircraft unavailability stemming from airspace restrictions and heightened precautionary checks, not a technical snag. This cancellation, affecting a route that had just resumed operations with a new code following the June 12 crash of flight AI-171, was part of a broader decision to cancel six international services flown by Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners. The other cancelled flights included AI 915 (Delhi–Dubai), AI 153 (Delhi–Vienna), AI 143 (Delhi–Paris), AI 133 (Bengaluru–London), and AI 170 (London–Amritsar). Air India stated it has arranged alternative travel or offered full refunds/rescheduling for affected passengers. The cancellations come amid increased scrutiny of the Dreamliner fleet after the Ahmedabad crash. Additionally, a technical issue forced an AI 315 Dreamliner to return to Hong Kong from Delhi, and an Air India San Francisco–Mumbai flight deboarded passengers due to a snag during a Kolkata halt. Furthermore, two Dreamliners from Lufthansa and British Airways, destined for Hyderabad and Chennai, also had to return to their origin airports due to issues.
Meanwhile, a video showing a window view of a plane taking off from the runway, showing the bird’s-eye view of an airport, is in circulation with the claim that the video shows live footage of the AI-171 flight that crashed. In the video, we can hear loud sounds and people screaming with panic in the aeroplane. The video is shared virally with the caption “Ahmedabad to London live plane crash.”
Here is the archive link of the claim.
Fact Check:
When we extracted the keyframes from the video and searched them using Google reverse image search, we found a few websites that shared images resembling some of the screenshots from the viral video. The images show Hong Kong International Airport, which is called Chek Lap Kok Airport. Several stock image websites share the aerial view of the airport, which resembles the visuals in the viral video. Here is the comparison.
We found a video shared by a few social media users with the caption: “Terrifying moment during take-off! The flight engine starts making strange, loud noises — could it be a bird strike? Passengers are panicking, screams fill the cabin, and this brave lady captures it all on video. The fear is real. Exact flight details and location are unknown, but this is one of those flights no one will ever forget. Watch till the end — spine-chilling!”
Upon further search for visuals showing an aerial view of Chek Lap Kok airport, we found a few videos. A YouTube short video shared on May 19, 2025, shows the Hong Kong International Airport aerial view, which resembles the visuals from the viral video.
Though we were not able to confirm in which aeroplane this video was shot and other details, we were able to assess that the video is not from the Air India flight that crashed on June 12, 2025. The claim is False.