An edited photo of a Chinook helicopter is shared as showing rescue efforts in Dharali, Uttarakhand
In the wake of the 2025 Uttarakhand flash flood disaster, a photo (here, here, and here) of a Chinook helicopter allegedly transporting a ‘JCB’ excavator to the disaster-struck village Dharali in Uttarkashi district is doing the rounds on social media. It is being said that this was done due to the closure of the roadways. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Photo of a Chinook helicopter deployed to Dharali to transport a JCB excavator after the 5 August 2025 flash floods in Uttarakhand.
Fact: This is a digitally edited image. The original photo of the upper half of this image has existed on the internet since at least October 2020. The bottom half of the photo shows the damage at the Dharali market area during the recent (5 August 2025) flash floods. Hence, the claim made in the post is False
Firstly, we conducted an internet search to determine if Chinook helicopters were used to deliver an excavator machine during the relief operations in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi following the flash floods in the first week of August 2025. This search led us to several news reports (here and here) about the Chinook helicopter being used in the rescue operations.
The Hindu reported on 9 August 2025 that ‘A Chinook helicopter transporting a generator set to the relief camp took off from the Jollygrant airport on Saturday morning.’ None of the news reports contained information about an excavator being airlifted to the relief camp using a Chinook helicopter. The viral photo is also not seen in any of the recent news reports on this incident.
After observing the viral photo, we suspected that it could have been digitally edited using multiple photos. This was because the background of the helicopter in the photo and the flood-affected area at the bottom half of the photo look very different.
To verify the same, we performed a reverse image search on the top half of the photo by cropping it and found similar photos in news reports from 2020 and 2022 (here, here, and here). The photo shows an Indian Air Force CH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying a howitzer.
A Rediff report from 7 October 2020 on the full dress rehearsal of the Indian Air Force’s 88th Air Force Day (here and here) held at the Ghaziabad air base contained this. The position of the blades, the shadows cast by them on the helicopter’s body, look the same as the viral photo, with the exception that it contains an excavator as opposed to the howitzer present in the original. Through an additional search, we found the photo of the excavator that was edited onto this photo, replacing the howitzer. It is a stock PNG file.
Furthermore, through a reverse image search on the bottom half of the viral photo, and found that news reports (here, here, and here) on the 5 August 2025 Uttarkashi flash flood disaster featured the same photo. As per these reports, this photo shows the view of the Dharali market area after the flash floods.
Additionally, we found that the Uttarkashi Police posted (archive link) about this on ‘X’ and called the claim Fake.
To sum up, this viral photo allegedly showing a Chinook helicopter transporting an excavator for the relief operations in the flood-affected Dharali is digitally altered.