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Claim: A Facebook user @Tari-Moni Plus Hela Province shared a video showing a woman who missed Air India Flight 171, tearfully thanking God for saving her life after she was late to the airport before the tragic crash.
Verdict: False. What appears to be a miraculous escape story is a synthetic creation flagged by AI detection tools and forensic tests.
Full Text
On June 12, 2025, multiple major news outlets reported the crash of Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787 bound from India to London. The aircraft slammed into a college hostel just seconds after takeoff, killing 241 people on board and at least 39 individuals on the ground. One passenger, Vishwash Ramesh, seated in the emergency row, was the only survivor and miraculously escaped with minor injuries.
In connection with this tragedy, a Facebook user, @Tari-Moni Plus Hela Province, shared a video clip showing a woman visibly sobbing with visible bruises on her face. The woman said, “Listen, everyone, I am the luckiest woman in the world. I reached 20 minutes late for my flight. I was so full of regret, but when the news of the crash came, I was so speechless. Thank you, God, for saving my life.”
As of June 20, 2025, the short video had garnered over 25,000 likes, 919 comments, 855 shares, and 908,000 views.
From the comments, @Mike Tabi wrote with emotion, “Amen. God has plans for you, my sister.”
@Jay Key Chan chimed in: “God’s timing is always perfect. To God be the glory.”
@Sarah Gatador also shared her thoughts: “God is good all the time. God knows everything about your life. Please don’t forget about him. Keep it in prayer.”
While most of the comments, like the above, expressed gratitude and reverence for the supposed miracle, a few voices disagreed with the footage’s content.
@Dinho Tom, for instance, questioned: “AI-Generated Video. Very fake!.. How did her red outfit turn into blue in less than a second?”
@Doyen Surumbun weighed in: “AI is taking over everything.”
With conflicting reactions from Facebook users, DUBAWA seized the opportunity to clarify the murky narrative and determine what’s true.
Verification
Following a notable comment by @Dinho Tom regarding potential alterations in the video, DUBAWA took a closer look and observed a peculiar detail. While the woman spoke, her outfit suddenly changed from brown to blue. With this unusual change, we used deepfake detection tools to analyse the video.
According to results from Deepware.ai, the video was flagged as suspicious, with a 65% likelihood of being a deepfake. Other detection systems reported even higher figures, with Seferbekov detecting a deepfake at 83%, and Ensemble returning a suspicious score of 77%. In contrast, Avatarify reported that no deepfake was detected at just 7%, a figure that is significantly lower than all the others and suggests a much lower sensitivity or potential misclassification in detecting manipulated content.
We also used the Hiya deepfake detector to analyse the audio in the content. It returned a score of 5 out of 100, with a high probability of the audio being AI-generated or manipulated.
Lastly, we conducted an Error Level Analysis (ELA) to detect any potential signs of manipulation in the image. The ELA output revealed inconsistent compression levels, with brighter areas concentrated in specific parts of the image, particularly around regions where the face or key visual elements are located. These uneven patterns suggest that certain portions may have been altered or fabricated after the original compression was made.
Additionally, there are no news reports about the unnamed survivor who missed her flight.
Conclusion
Despite appearing realistic, DUBAWA found the video was forged. Visual inconsistencies, deepfake detection scores, and forensic analysis all indicate that the content has been deliberately manipulated to appear authentic. There is also no report of this miracle survivor.
