Old Unrelated Video Falsely Shared as AI 171 Flight Weeks Before The Crash

Air India Flight AI171, bound for London from Ahmedabad, tragically crashed shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, resulting in the deaths of 241 people, with only one passenger surviving. As investigations into the cause of the crash continue, several videos have surfaced on social media claiming to show the incident or its aftermath. One such video, shared on X by a user named India Codex, shows water leaking inside an aircraft. The user claims the footage is from the ill-fated AI171 flight that crashed in Ahmedabad yesterday. The post can be seen below.

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The caption of the post is as follows: “Footage from inside the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, Flight AI171 just weeks before the crash. Is this what superior Indian engineering looks like?”. However when we investigated the post, we found that the video has no relation with the AI 171 that crashed. 

Fact Check

We did a reverse image search with the screenshots of keyframes of the video and found the video posted on X on 29 November 2023.  Thus, the video is over a year old and not a few weeks old as claimed by the user. 

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We searched on Google using relevant keywords related to the video and found some media reports about the incident. According to the reports, the video is from Air India flight AI 169 from Amritsar to London. The incident took place on 24 November 2023, when water started leaking from the luggage compartment. 

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Following this incident, Air India issued a statement. As per India Today the statement from Air India reads as follows: “Flight AI169 operating from Gatwick to Amritsar on 24th November 2023 had developed a rare occurrence of condensation adjustment inside the cabin. Some of our guests seated in the affected rows were promptly relocated to other vacant seats and given the circumstances, the cabin crew made every effort to make the guests comfortable. Air India is committed to the safety and comfort of guests on board and we regret this unexpected incident.”   

Conclusion

Our fact-check confirms that the video shared on X, claimed to be footage from Flight AI171 weeks before the crash, is actually from a different flight—Air India AI169—recorded in November 2023. The footage has no connection to the recent AI171 crash in Ahmedabad.