AI-generated image of Air India crash shared online

An image appearing to show an Air India plane hitting a building is being shared widely online in the wake of the crash in Ahmedabad on 12 June—but it isn’t real, and has been generated by artificial intelligence.

Flight AI171 was travelling from Ahmedabad in India to London Gatwick and crashed almost immediately after take-off into a building used as accommodation for doctors at a local hospital.

All but one of the 242 passengers and crew died in the crash, which also killed at least eight people on the ground.

A picture of a plane, shared on Facebook with the caption “No words”, resembles that of the crashed Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, and features the Air India livery.

In the image, which is also being shared on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, the aeroplane is broken in two across the corner of a building complex, and is engulfed in flames.

However, this is not a real image from the crash, and it has the hallmarks of being created with artificial intelligence (AI).

Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigations Officer at GetReal Labs, a company which uses forensic techniques to identify malicious synthetic content and detect AI and deepfakes told us: “This image is obviously generated using an AI.

“Structurally the plane does not make sense, the way that is supposedly broken is not logical. Looks like it was broken in half and then stacked. And the building it crashed into is completely nondescript, another sign of generative AI.”

Gina Neff, Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University of London, also told us that there are “key tells” that the image has been generated by AI, such as the body of the aircraft being “folded oddly with a seam between two parts of the fuselage, seemingly with a major part of the middle missing”.

She added: “The front section of the fuselage appears to be floating, defying gravity. The portside wing and engine somehow is folded underneath the body, again, defying physics.

“The building has four levels on one side and six on the other around a corner, not a common way that buildings are constructed. The windows and balconies look completely identical and yet somehow off.”

We also compared the image to (warning: some may find these images distressing) real scenes of the crash site, which look significantly different to the social media picture.

Additionally there are differences between the details of the plane in the viral image, and genuine photographs of Air India’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner fleet. The plane in the fake image doesn’t have the red outline on its cabin windows, or a symbol on its engine which is present in real pictures.

Misleading content like this can spread quickly during unfolding crisis events, so it’s important to consider whether it comes from a verifiable and reliable source before sharing. Our guides can help you identify whether an image has been created or altered with AI.