Fact Check: Air India plane crash - CCTV video shows blast upon impact? No, here's the truth

Hyderabad: On June 12, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner (Flight AI171) en route from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick crashed shortly after take-off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.

Amid this tragedy, a video began circulating on social media platforms claiming to show CCTV footage from a supposed crash site.

A Facebook user shared the footage with a caption in Telugu that translates to, “The situation is very bad. This is CCTV footage from the Air India crash. A litre of petrol can turn a person to ashes. Imagine what happens when 58,000 litres explode. Aviation fuel causes 10 times more fires than car petrol. This will go down as the most tragic incident in aviation history.” (Archive)

The video starts with an explosion in a parking area, followed by visuals from inside a building, with ceilings and walls collapsing in several rooms from the explosion.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video predates the Ahmedabad crash and is unrelated to the incident.

On examining the visuals, we saw text edited on top of the footage that reads, ‘Ragheb Harb University Hospital.’

A keyword search led us to the hospital’s official Facebook page, which posted an extended compilation of the CCTV footage of the explosion. The video was shared on February 5, several months before the June 12 plane crash.

The caption of the original post (translated from Arabic) read: “The criminal entity wanted to shatter people’s hope for recovery, but the legendary steadfastness of the angels of mercy at Sheikh Ragheb Harb Hospital returned as it was, and we will remain at your service with our eyelashes.”

This post described the video as documenting renovations after a destructive strike.

A report by This is Beirut, published on November 5, 2024, also confirms that Israeli military strikes had caused extensive damage near Sheikh Ragheb Harb University Hospital in Toul, southern Lebanon.

In addition, an X post from October 21, 2024, mentioned a raid near the hospital’s parking area in Toul that caused fires and destruction.

While NewsMeter could not independently verify the exact location of the camera footage, the fact that it has been online since February 2025 confirms that it is not connected to the June 12 Ahmedabad Air India crash.

The viral video showing a hospital interior and a parking lot blast is not from Ahmedabad. It was possibly filmed in Lebanon months before the Air India crash. Therefore, the claim is false.