Old video of a fight onboard aircraft shared with false communal narrative

by Ankita Mahalanobish

A video of a physical fight inside an aircraft is circulating widely on social media. A man dressed in a black shirt is seen in the clip being assaulted by others. From the markings on the seats, one can see that it is a Thai Smile Airline flight.

The footage begins with two passengers engaged in a heated argument in the presence of flight attendants. In the meantime, a few other passengers join in and a man standing in the aisle hits the man standing by his seat. Soon, the others join the flight and thrash the man.

This video is being shared with the claim that Muslim passengers ganged up on a Hindu passenger on a flight to Mumbai without any particular reason.

X (formerly Twitter) user @maheshyagyasain tweeted the video and wrote, “Scene of a fight on an airplane… all the attackers have been arrested… the incident is said to have taken place on a flight going to Mumbai. All the people who beat him were from Muslim community.. They unite anywhere without even knowing each other…” (Archive)

The tweet has garnered over 4 Lakh views and has been retweeted close to 5,000 times.

Another X user, @DilipKu24388061 tweeted the video and wrote, “… The whole world is troubled by these Jihadis. These Jihadis have no peace on earth, they are restless even in the sky, and even in the grave after death… ”. (Archive)

An X user @Mahaveer_VJ claimed that the Muslim ‘jihadis’ taunted the man Hindu man while the flight took off from Mumbai and all the ‘jihadis’ were later arrested. He also asked why the other Hindus on board remained silent spectators. “How long will the Hindu majority remain under the control of the minority?”, he lamented. However, he later deleted the tweet. (Archive)

 Several other users have shared the same video with similar claims.

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Fact Check

After breaking the video into key frames, we ran reverse image searches on a few frames. This led us to a thread of tweets by Saurabh Sinha (@27saurabhsinha) from December 28, 2022. Sinha is a senior editor at the Times of India covering aviation, hospitality, and travel. In the first tweet, he wrote, “#AirRage Video of a fight between pax that broke out on @ThaiSmileAirway flight. Reportedly on a Bangkok-India flight of Dec 27”. 

Taking a cue from the thread, we performed a keyword search that led us to various news articles reporting the incident. According to the Times of India,  when the Airbus A320 was taxiing at Bangkok airport, a passenger seated on 37C “refused to” upright his reclined seat as per rules after being asked by the cabin crew of Thai Smile Airlines. He even refused to budge, said the airline’s “security (incident) report”. 

The Thai Smile Airlines report submitted on December 29, 2022 to the Indian directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) said, “There were passengers seated on seats 38A, B & C. when the crew asked him to straighten his seat during take-off and landing, the person on 37C said he has a backache. The crew tried explaining that the seat must be in upright position so as not to hinder the path of passengers seated behind him in case of evacuation (an aviation safety rule globally followed). Or to prevent those to take brace position if need in an emergency.”

The crew repeatedly requested the passenger to abide by the safety rules, but he retorted, “I fly often; I know what to do.” Despite repeated requests the passenger kept seated with his seat reclined. He was then informed that if he doesn’t comply to the rules, they would report to the pilot to which he replied, “Ok, tell him. I’m not scared.”

Soon, other fliers started complaining about the passenger. One of them got into an argument with him that soon escalated into an assault. 

“The captain was informed and he delayed the takeoff. At last, they stopped fighting and calmed down. The crew ensured they returned to the seats, and the flight continued as usual”, says the airline’s report as documented by Times of India.

Another report from NDTV mentioned the same details about the incident. It added that according to the report submitted to the DGCA “none of the fliers involved were served alcoholic drinks on the flight. There was no other disturbance for the remainder of the journey, the report said. The report further stated that two passengers, who were spotted shooting videos of the assault, were requested to delete them.

We found a news bulletin by NDTV on the incident, where anchor Vishnu Som talks to an aviation expert and an eyewitness to the entire incident, Alok Kumar, who explains the turn of events that led to the brawl. He also affirms that the fight took place over the concerned passenger’s refusal to straighten his seat back.

The Hindu reported, “On Thursday, as the video of the in-flight assault went viral on social media, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security stepped in and filed a police complaint against all passengers involved at a police station in Kolkata. The complaint included Amid Mohammad Hussain, the passenger who was slapped, as well as S K Azaruddin who can be seen in the video punching blows incessantly, and a bunch of other passengers involved in the scuffle.”

To sum up, a two-year-old video of a brawl onboard a flight from Bangkok to Kolkata is being misleadingly circulated with a communal angle. The clash was not communal in nature and both the main accused and the person seen assaulted in the video hailed from the Muslim community. 

Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.

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