A 2015 photo of a flooded Chennai airport is passed off as that of Ahmedabad airport - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 3, 2023
A photo of a few partially submerged aeroplanes in water is being shared through a social media post claiming it as the poor condition of the flooded Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport. This is being shared in the wake of Ahmedabad airport getting flooded due to heavy rain on 22 July 2023 (here and here). Let’s check the veracity of this claim through this article.
Claim: Photo of a flooded Ahmedabad International Airport.
Fact: This photo was filmed in the Chennai airport during the 2015 floods. In 2017, the same photo was falsely shared as that of the Ahmedabad airport, for which PTI fired its photographer who misquoted it. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To learn more details about the viral photo, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the 2017 article about the same photo.
Published by The Scroll, the article said that PTI fired a photographer for wrongly sharing a 2015 image showing a flooded Chennai airport as Ahmedabad airport. After the clarification, Indian Express, which also reportedly shared this photo with the wrong caption, acknowledged the error.
Reportedly, PTI took this action after BJP leader Smriti Irani pointed out this error. Also, in 2017, the same photo was falsely shared by a newspaper, as the condition of Chandigarh airport, which was affected by rain in July 2017.
PTI deeply regrets the error and has terminated the services of the concerned photographer; @smritiirani and @shashidigital
Reportedly, the airport authorities alerted the Mohali police in this regard. Nevertheless, it is evident that this photo existed on the internet way before the flooding of the Ahmedabad airport in July 2023 (when the most recent flooding occurred there), which disproves the claim that it represents a flooded Ahmedabad airport. Boomlive also debunked this claim in 2017, which can be seen here.
To sum up, an old photo filmed during the 2015 Chennai floods is passed off as that of Ahmedabad airport.