Several Indian news outlets misreported an old and unrelated video of passengers inside an aircraft as a recent footage from a Chicago-Delhi Air India flight that had to return back to Chicago due to clogged toilets.
On March 10, 2025, Air India confirmed that its Chicago-to-Delhi flight on March 6 was forced to return after most of its 12 onboard toilets became unusable. The airline claimed that the issue was due to passengers flushing items like polythene bags, rags, and clothes, which clogged the lavatories.
News outlets, including Times Now, ET Now, The Indian Express, Mirror Now, News9, The Tribune, News 18, misreported the video and attributed it to the recent incident.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video dates back to at least January 6, 2025, and is not linked to the recent incident of the Air India flight that had to return to Chicago due to clogged toilets.
We broke the viral video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search and found that the video has been viral on social media since January 2025.
The same video was posted on X by the handle UB1UB2 West London (Southall), with the caption, "Passengers on an Air India plane in London Gatwick were told the flight was cancelled, after sitting on the plane for 7 hours."
We can see the same sequence of events in this as in the viral video which establish that it predates the Air India Chicago-Delhi incident.
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We also found an Instagram post with the same video posted by the handle "Crime London and UK News", which had posted it with the same caption.
BOOM was unable to independently verify the incident in the viral video; however, the video is unrelated to the recent incident of Air India flight returning back to Chicago due to clogged toilets.
BOOM has reached out to Air India for a response, and the article will be updated as and when we receive one.
